


Pain Control

by Tailkinker



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, CollarVerse, Corporal Punishment, Darkish!Wilson, M/M, forced amputation, non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 23:45:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 39,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5394728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tailkinker/pseuds/Tailkinker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greg House is a long term slave at PPTH, while also being the head of the Diagnostics department. When his behaviour continues to give Doctor Cuddy problems she resorts to drastic measures to try and control him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In the beginning there was CollarRedux - a story written by Oflymonddreams and posted on ff.net. This was a retelling of House MD in an alternative universe where slavery is legal, and Greg House is a slave owned by PPTH. More stories were written, both in the original CollarRedux universe, and with various AUs of it. There is a collection on ff.net for these stories (collectively known as [The Collarverse ](https://www.fanfiction.net/community/CollarVerse/85158/99/0/1/0/0/0/0/) )
> 
> This story was written back in 2010. I'm posting it over here (with a bit of cleaning up) in the hopes that I might be inspired to finish the sequel which I abandoned back in 2011. This is another alternative universe to the main CollarVerse universe. It's a fairly dark story, with non-con, abuse and other fun things.

Greg was in such a critical condition that he had been permitted in the main area of the hospital rather than the slave ward. He was naked and restrained by ankles and wrists to the bed and in a room by himself so as not to disturb the free people with his screaming.

The slave was in agony, the pain killers he was permitted barely touched his ongoing pain.

A young intern had been assigned to Greg's case and he now stood at the foot of the bed presenting the case to Dr Cuddy.

"...so the patient suffered significant muscle death due to the delay in diagnosing his infarction..."

"...four day delay. Due to the incompetence of the doctors you hire." Greg spat out, staring at Cuddy. His pain was overcoming some of the caution that had been beaten into him. Cuddy ignored him and the young doctor continued.

"The decision was made to remove the clot and defer amputation until the patient's progress could be assessed. Post-operative pain was extreme and the patient suffered a myocardial infarction. He was revived medically."

"Recommended course of treatment?"

"Debridement of the muscle in the thigh to remove the decayed tissue, this should lower the pain level though there will be some loss of function to the leg."

"No! Put me in a coma; let me ride out the worst of the pain." Greg strained against his bonds, his eyes wide, his heart rate rising dangerously again.

"That's not your choice to make, Greg. The risk to your life is unacceptably high; the hospital has too much invested in you to chance it. The debridement is the best option to end this with minimal damage. Some impairment to your mobility is a small price to pay." Cuddy said dismissively, signing off on his chart, handing it back to the intern. "Get him booked in for surgery ASAP."

"I'll be in pain! I've seen the scans – they'll have to take so much muscle that the leg will be virtually useless. You might as well have amputated it."

"That's enough, Greg! You begged us not to amputate, and we agreed to that but we cannot allow any further risk to the hospital's investment. You will receive rehab for the leg to enable you to regain function. We cannot take the risk of losing you. This is the best course of action."

"No! Don't do this!" Greg pulled at the restraints, his pain giving him added strength. Cuddy stepped away from the bed.

She turned to the intern. "Sedate him; there is no need for him to be awake. When he wakes up the surgery will be over."

She turned and left the room without another glance at Greg. The intern avoided looking at his patient. 

“Please, there’s no need for this,” Greg pleaded, his voice hoarse from screaming. 

"It’s not my decision.” The intern still wouldn’t look at him. He prepared a sedative and injected it into the IV line. Greg struggled against the sedation briefly, tears rolling down his cheeks. Finally he fell asleep. The intern adjusted the sheet around his naked patient, covering him up again.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to the sleeping man. He returned to the nurse's desk to make arrangements for the surgery.

When Greg awoke it was to a heavily mutilated leg, lameness and crippling pain.

* * *

Wilson was working in his office when he heard a commotion through the walls. That could only mean Greg.

When he entered the diagnostics conference room he found the three junior doctors seated around the table, all staring at the activity in Greg's small office. Greg was kneeling down in the doorway between his office and the conference room. His hands were cuffed behind his back and a security guard was holding his shoulder tightly. Cuddy was standing next to him. Two other security guards were systematically going through Greg's office and bed area.

"Dr Cuddy? What's going on?" Wilson came up to them, shooting a glance at Greg. Greg looked back at him blankly. The position he was in had to be hurting his bad leg but he made no complaint.

"Good morning, Doctor Wilson. We are searching Greg's office for drugs."

"Drugs? But Greg gets his Oxycontin at the pharmacy twice a day – they watch him take it."

"Apparently Greg has also been getting drugs from Lou the janitor, and from who knows where else. We've had Lou under surveillance – Greg here has been giving him some _special services_ in return for whatever Lou could get hold of." Cuddy held up a small plastic bags full of little sample sachets of pills. No doubt pilfered from various Doctor's offices. "These were secreted all over this office. He’s been taking extra pills whenever he wants."

"I'm in pain! What you are giving me isn't enough. I only take them when I need them," Greg put in. The security guard pulled his head back by the hair and growled at him to shut up.

Cuddy ignored Greg's protests. Instead she addressed the security detail.

"Finish in here and then do the conference room. Bring all the contraband to me."

She looked down at Greg, staring straight into his angry blue eyes. His head was still held back by the security guard. 

"Take this slave to the basement. Strip him and search every inch of him carefully for drugs. He probably has some on him. Then he will receive his punishment. One hundred lashes, Greg."

Cameron gasped and even Foreman started to rise in protest. Wilson felt his stomach clench at the thought. One hundred lashes at the whipping post could kill him. 

Cuddy ignored them, continuing on. "He will be given ten a day, every day, until they are finished. He is not to miss any time at work. He'll be put to work in the clinic from eight in the morning until eight at night every day during that period. The lashes will be delivered when his shift is completed. He is to have no pain relief for the duration. He will be given a drug test every day to ensure that. After the ten days is complete the diagnostics maintenance committee will meet and decide what is to be done about the slave’s ongoing medication. "

"I need the drugs..." Greg protested, seeming more scared at the prospect of losing his pain relief than at the whippings. "I can't work without them."

"Take him away and give him the first ten lashes and then take him to the clinic to start his extra shift." Cuddy instructed the guards.

Two guards hauled Greg to his feet. He was boneless between them, helpless to fight back but trying to passively resist.

"Please, Dr Cuddy. I need something, I can't manage without it."

"That's enough, Greg. You've brought this on yourself. Take him away."

The guards hauled him bodily out the room, silencing his protests with a quick elbow to the midriff. His frantic gaps for air could be heard as they disappeared down the corridor.

Cuddy turned to the Fellows who were staring after Greg, their expressions shocked.

"If I find that any of you have supplied Greg with drugs you will find your contracts very quickly terminated."

They all protested and shook their heads. She turned to Wilson.

"That applies to you as well, Doctor Wilson."

"I don't like what you are implying, Dr Cuddy."

Cuddy smiled. "No, you wouldn't, would you? Never mind. You wouldn't want to give him pills to ease his pain would you, Doctor Wilson?"

Wilson flushed, his feelings towards Greg, and his pain, were complicated, and not something he wanted raised in the presence of the junior doctors.

"If he's been taking more than we've been giving him, he is probably addicted to some degree. He'll start showing withdrawal symptoms very shortly. He may not be able to work." Wilson pointed out.

Cuddy smiled thinly. "The good thing about keeping slaves, Doctor Wilson, is that you don't have to give them a choice. Greg will work."

* * *

Wilson entered Cuddy's office, trying his best to appear casual but with his heart pounding. He had heard what had happened with Greg from the fellows. They had come rushing into his office as soon as they could get away, all apparently expecting him to do something about the situation.

Cuddy looked up at the intrusion.

"Doctor Wilson, I should have expected you. You might as well take a seat."

"Is Greg okay?"

"Greg assaulted a patient's father. He had better hope that he is correct about his diagnosis. We'll know within 24 hours. Meanwhile the father has been busy calling his lawyers who are calling my lawyers. Greg is a pain in my ass."

"Well he very likely saved the kid's life, all while detoxing from narcotics, and being whipped every night. He must have been in extreme pain. He shouldn't even have had a patient in that state." Wilson pointed out. He didn’t know what Cuddy had been thinking – the outcome had been almost inevitable, given Greg’s personality. "Where is he?"

"Security have him under close confinement in the cells. He can stay there until this mess is sorted out." Cuddy looked up at Wilson. "I suppose you want to go see him?"

Wilson did want to see him, very much.

"I'll call down and let them know. You are not to release him, or give him any pain relief. He's brought this on himself. You can check him out and make sure our expensive asset is still in one piece but that’s it."

Wilson nodded and hurried out of the office and down to the basement where the slaves had their quarters. 

A guard let him into a cell, it was smaller than Greg's little cubicle in diagnostics, with no furniture at all. The light was off until Wilson flicked it on. Greg was seated in a corner of the cell on the floor. His hands were chained in front of him, his ankles also cuffed together with a length of chain. A leash ran from his collar into a tethering point on the wall. A bucket sat next to him and a bowl of water next to that.

Greg was in pain, his face drawn and weary. It had been five days since he started detoxing so most of the more severe side effects were over with but he still had the pain from his leg to contend with, not to mention the fifty strokes of the lash he had endured so far.

"Come to see the condemned?" Greg's voice was a rusty thread.

"They haven't confirmed what the kid has yet. If you were wrong..."

"I'm not wrong."

"Even if you are right, there's no way you are going to escape punishment for this, Greg. You struck a free man."

"Who just happened to be a moron and a lousy father. He's been neglecting that kid. If he'd been paying any attention to him we'd have caught it much earlier." Greg sighed and leaned his head back against the wall. "We're going to cure the kid so the father can go on using him as a punching bag."

Wilson came closer and examined him in the dim light of the cell. Greg looked like hell. His skin was pale and his beard had grown out. He looked like he hadn't washed or slept in the five days since the drug discovery. Wilson could see a livid bruise on one cheek and a small cut in the corner of his mouth. The guards had strict orders not to hurt him but the father had been quick with his fists.

Wilson took a cloth out of the bag of supplies he had brought with him and poured a little of Greg's water over it. He began to gently clean the battered face. Greg pulled away from him but with the chains he couldn't go far and subsided as Wilson tenderly wiped the cloth over his skin.

"You're just loving this aren't you?"

Wilson ignored the sneer and continued on with his task.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?"

Greg shook his head. "Nothing serious. Just a few bruises, that new guard got in a quick kick to the ribs, where it doesn't show. Of course if you could unchain me that would be good. Even better if you've got some little pills in your pocket."

"More than my life's worth. Besides Cuddy is in a foul mood – you're better off down here out of the way."

Greg looked down at himself. "Yeah, wouldn't want her to be mad at me, who knows what she could do!"

"You know what she could do."

"You'd like that wouldn't you? Me being whipped some more? Want to see the marks on my back?"

Wilson didn't answer that. The truth was that there was something about the thought of Greg being whipped that did things to Wilson. Even just seeing Greg like this, chained up and helpless was turning him on. He did want to see the marks on his back, very much, and run his hands over them. He wanted to feel Greg squirm as he played with the welts. He wanted to take him away from this and take care of him - he wanted to own him.

"I'd better go."

Greg looked at him and then looked away. He swallowed hard. Wilson thought that for once Greg didn't want him to leave. Of course very few people would want to be chained up and left alone in a small dark cell. Wilson couldn't stay. He'd already shown such an interest in this slave that people were beginning to remark on it.

He stood and moved towards the door.

"I'll try and come back later if I can, once we find out for sure about the kid."

As he went to switch off the light he heard a small voice.

"Don't. Please."

Wilson took his hand away from the switch and nodded. Quickly he left the little cell and walked past the guard, down the corridor, out of the slave basement and back into the warmth and light of the hospital.

Once he was gone the guard went back to the cell, checked Greg’s chains and switched the light off.

* * *

Greg's diagnosis of the child turned out to be correct. Negotiations were done behind the scenes and Greg was hauled out of his dark hole, taken to Cuddy's office and thrust down onto his knees, still chained and leashed. The father was brought in and Greg managed to choke out a fairly insincere apology for striking him. The man kicked the helpless slave twice in the groin and as Greg doubled over on the floor he strode out of the room.

"Another satisfied customer." Greg ground out between his clenched teeth. "Hopefully he'll tell all his friends."

Cuddy watched him, shaking her head.

"He could have ordered you whipped bloody for what you did. You were lucky that we could buy him off."

"I was right. I saved his kid's life,” Greg muttered from his balled up position on the floor. 

“You hit a free man."

"I was in pain! I'm still in pain – I need my pills. I can't work like this, Dr Cuddy. I can't _think_ like this." He slowly unwound himself until he was in a sloppy kneeling position. 

"Then you shouldn't have stolen the pills, Greg. Doctor Wilson advocated for you to go on the Oxycontin and you've betrayed his trust."

"They weren't enough. You people cut out half of my thigh – you know I'm in pain. If you had just done what I asked when I had the infarction I wouldn't have this pain." 

"You'd be dead." Cuddy turned to the guards. "Take him back to his cell. He can stay there while we decide what to do about him."

Once Greg had been taken away Cuddy called her assistant in and asked her to arrange an emergency meeting of the diagnostic maintenance committee.

* * *

Cuddy quickly brought the other members of the committee up to date with what had been happening with Greg.

"We need a long term solution to the problem. I need someone to give me one. I can't keep having him whipped, and it appears that any drug regimen we find is either unsuitable for long term use or at danger of being abused by the slave."

"If you recall I advised against using the Oxycontin in the first place. The slave is an addict, any drug you give him he will abuse." Doctor Moore looked down the table at Wilson, who'd forced through the Oxycontin solution when Greg had been shifted from Methadone some months ago.

"Do you suggest we simply give him nothing?" Wilson asked. "Greg is in pain, he needs something to enable him to function and continue to bring revenue to this hospital. We've just seen what can happen when his pain isn't controlled adequately."

"Well, we could try some non-narcotic solutions along with therapy and alternative treatments. However the slave is very non-compliant, he will find drugs from elsewhere if we don't supply them."

Moore sat back in his seat and shook his head.

"We have been through this before. It’s a radical solution but I would suggest that we stop treating the symptom and address the cause. Do what should have been done in the first place and amputate the slave’s right leg."

There was a shocked silence around the table.

"His pain will stop and the need for a drug regimen will be averted. The slave will become happier and more functional. A win for everyone." Moore added. "You can administer regular drug tests afterwards to make sure the slave is not obtaining drugs for recreational purposes now that he has a taste for them."

"The cost of a prosthetic would be high, not to mention the rehabilitation period that he would require," Cuddy said.

"Who said anything about a prosthetic? We are not required to fit a slave with one. It is not medical treatment, it is cosmetic. Greg will get along well enough on crutches. At least he won't be able to take a swing at anyone. Well, not without falling over anyway." Moore laughed.

"You can't cut off his leg and just leave it at that!" Wilson was shocked. "He'll never come to terms with that. You'll have a massive discipline problem on your hands, Dr Cuddy. You can't be seriously thinking about doing this."

Cuddy sat back in her chair and regarded him calmly.

"It could actually make him easier to control. As it stands I have to have a hand-picked security detail just to restrain him without hurting him. With crutches he becomes a lot less dangerous than with a cane. If his cane is taken away he can still manage to limp quite a distance, without his crutches he would be immobile.” She nodded her head. “It seems like the best solution. It may take a while but Greg will adjust to it. He’s had to adapt many times in his life, not least to becoming a slave and crippled in the first place.”

Wilson started to rub the back of his neck, a nervous habit he had picked up since starting work at PPTH. He was appalled at this suggested course of action but everyone else at the table seemed to think it reasonable. 

Cuddy continued on. "And he won't be in pain, or not in severe pain anyway. Most people would think that was a good thing, Dr Wilson. Don't you agree?"

Greg not in pain. Greg without that hideous, compelling, scar on his thigh. Wilson didn't quite know what he thought about that. He stared at the table while the conversation went on around him. Already they had moved past suggesting a solution, to working out the logistics. 

"We must ensure that the record shows that this has been done for medical reasons. Have him admitted to the slave ward and we will do a full work-up on his leg, get all the scans, pain levels and so forth. Put them in his record in case there are any claims of mistreatment. I'll speak to a head of surgery and get him put on the list for tomorrow," Cuddy said briskly.

"Wait, why don't we give it some time ..." Wilson protested.

"No, we can't afford for Greg to hear about this like he did with the last change in his pain regimen, Doctor Wilson. We need to get this done quickly and with a minimum of fuss so that we can have get Diagnostics operating again as soon as possible. Arrange for Greg to be moved to the slave ward, Doctor Moore. You may tell him I've postponed the balance of his punishment so we can properly assess his leg injury and decide on what pain medication to give him. Hopefully that will keep him quiet and calm before the operation."

Cuddy looked down the table at Wilson.

"It would be better if you didn't go to see Greg before the operation, Doctor Wilson. We wouldn't want him to hear of this ...accidentally."

* * *

One of the hospital’s most junior surgeons was assigned to the surgery. It wasn't a difficult procedure and Greg was a slave, albeit a very valuable slave. Doctor Rignold flipped through the consent forms. They were the slave version of course, with space for the owner to give his consent to the specified surgery. Dr Cuddy's name was scrawled in there, and her signature. Greg's name and signature were nowhere to be seen. Apparently his patient hadn't even told what this operation was to be. He'd just been knocked out and wheeled in here.

Rignold surveyed the slave on his table. He remembered him from when he was doing his internship in this very hospital. That time the slave was having his leg mutilated without his consent. This time Rignold would be amputating the limb. He stared down at his patient and sighed. At least he would be taking the man's pain away.

He looked at the team around the table. None of them looked happy about the situation but no-one would stop him. The slave's owner was quite within her rights to have this done.

He prepped the area and then raised the bone saw. Gripping the upper part of the thigh he took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to his patient as he made the first incision.

* * *

Greg woke up slowly, fuzzily. The first thing he felt was nausea, the second was pure fear. He could tell he'd been operated on by the surroundings and the lingering effects of the anaesthetic. He tried to roll onto his side but found that his hands were bound to the side of the bed, probably his ankles were too but he couldn't tell. There was a sheet and blanket covering him.

"Stay still." A voice commanded him, holding a container under his mouth. Greg felt the head of the bed being raised and the additional movement had him retching into the basin. When he was finished some impersonal hands wiped his mouth and face with a cold cloth.

"You're in Recovery. We'll monitor you for an hour and all going well you will be sent back down to the slave ward then."

Greg finally managed to focus his eyes, staring at the nurse by his side.

"What did they do to me?"

"Your right leg was amputated above the site of your infarction. You should be functional again in a few days."

Greg's insides clenched and his heart raced. He looked down at himself; he could just see that the blanket was tented over his right leg. He tried to reach down with his hand but the bindings stopped him. Panicked, he tugged at them, rattling the side of the bed.

"Enough of that." The nurse reprimanded. "You'll hurt yourself."

"Pull the blanket back."

The nurse wasn't used to being spoken to like that by a slave. She glared down at him.

"I will call security to come and deal with you if you continue being difficult. Lay back and rest."

"I just need to see...please...I need to know what they've done."

The nurse sighed. She pulled back the blanket and sheet, exposing his right leg, which now ended not far below the hip. The stump was wrapped in bandages.

"There, now you've seen it. Happy?"

Greg stared at it and then at the nurse. He started to pull at the restraints and began shouting. As security rushed into the room he felt a prick on his arm and darkness rushing in.

* * *

Wilson entered the slave ward, making his way to where Greg lay on the last bed in the row. He was on his back, arms and leg shackled to the bed. He was naked, and the bed had no coverings.

Greg was due for release today. The stump was healing nicely and his doctor had cleared him to resume light duties, as well as an extensive physical therapy schedule. Wilson had the elbow crutches in his hand. He would get Greg up and using the crutches. It wasn't something he wanted any other doctor doing.

As he approached, Greg turned his head to stare at him. His face was drawn and haggard. His eyes were sunken in his head; there was no light in them.

"Come to see the freak?"

"You're not a freak, Greg. I came to get you out of that bed and out of here." Wilson looked around. The slave ward was not a pleasant place to be.

"Did you know about this?"

"I tried to stop them. I got outvoted. The decision was made very quickly." Wilson glanced down at what was left of Greg's right leg, his gaze lingering. "How's the pain?"

"Oh, pain's mostly gone. This will probably catch on as a treatment option. Sorry that there’s no scar for you to admire anymore, and no pain. Guess you'll be moving on to some other slave now. Maybe you can have my leg as a trophy."

Wilson flushed.

"I’m not like that, Greg. Of course I still want you."

"Lucky me."

Wilson started fiddling with the straps on the bed, releasing them so that Greg could get up. “Come on, time you got out of that bed.”

Greg turned his head away.

Wilson sighed and signalled the two security guards stationed in the doorway. Greg was going to get up and start walking around on crutches whether he liked it or not.

* * *

Chase, Cameron and Foreman were seated at the conference table when they heard the crutches. They looked out into the hallway and watched as Greg made his way to their room. The glass door was closed and Chase jumped up to open it. Greg was balanced between two elbow crutches. His right leg had been amputated and the hem of his jeans was pinned up below the stump. He was pale and drawn, his clothes hanging loosely on him.

The slave crutched himself into the conference room, ignoring Chase and started to make his way into his office beyond.

Foreman stood up.

"Doctor House."

Greg stopped and turned around to stare at Foreman.

"What they did. It was wrong."

Foreman expected Greg to toss off a snarky comment, saying that he was just a piece of hospital equipment they'd decided to modify. He expected Greg to make light of this terrible thing that had been done to him.

As he watched, Greg, the slave, disappeared and Dr House emerged. The man pulled himself up to his full height and stared back at Foreman.

"Yes, it was. The question is, what are you going to do about it?"

Doctor House didn't wait for an answer; he turned away and made his slow way into his office.

At the conference table Foreman sat down again and the three Fellows stared at each other in silence.


	2. Chapter 2

Greg crutched into his office and stopped still. The place had been stripped of everything that had made it his little sanctuary. He had a bare desk left, and a chair. His books were gone, the few little things he had kept on the desk and bookcases were gone. His bunk was still there, tucked into one corner; a pile of fresh linen was placed on it. Further inspection revealed one set of clean clothes and underwear. There was nothing else.

"I'm sorry, Doctor House, Doctor Cuddy came and took everything after you were ..."

"Taken away to be whipped?" Greg finished for Cameron. She was standing in the doorway, a compassionate look on her face, a hint of tears in her eyes. "Or after I was thrown into a cell, or after my leg was chopped off?"

Cameron flushed. She responded defensively.

"You shouldn't have stolen the drugs."

Ho laughed bitterly. "Yeah, I guess I shouldn't have." He made his way past her, still awkward on the crutches.

"Where are you going?"

"To see Doctor Cuddy."

Foreman stood up and moved towards him.

"Do you think that's a good idea? Maybe you should stay out of her way for a while."

"Boss lady told me to report to her when I got back. You want to tell her I'm not coming?"

Foreman stood back and shook his head.

"Didn't think so." He continued on towards the door, which had closed again. Chase went to go and open it for him, but Foreman stopped him with a gesture. As they watched, Greg juggled the crutches and held his balance while he pulled the door open, he made his way through awkwardly and went off down the hallway.

Foreman looked at Chase as they watched him make his slow way to the elevator.

"He's a slave. You can't go around opening doors for him. He has to learn to do it himself."

"You're the one who was saying how wrong it was, what Cuddy did to him."

Foreman sat back down, shrugging his shoulders.

"Yeah it was, but he's not going to thank us for trying to help him with shit like that."

* * *

He had to take the elevator. He wasn't anywhere near steady enough on the crutches yet to use the stairs as he was supposed to. The elevator car was crowded with a mixture of staff and patients families. As he entered he could feel all eyes on him, the pathetic one legged slave. He stood quietly, head bowed submissively, staring at the floor. The last thing he needed now was to start trouble, he was exhausted already. When they got to the correct floor he hung back and let the free people off first. As he went to follow he felt a slight tug on one crutch, enough to unbalance him and he fell hard onto the floor, half in and half out of the elevator.

When he looked back he could see a young doctor who he'd embarrassed on his last case. A fresh young intern in the ER who'd totally misdiagnosed a patient. The man grinned at him and then used his foot to push him completely out of the elevator so the door could close. 

"Better get up, Greg. I’m sure security would want a slave lying around getting in people’s way." The door shut, which at least had the advantage of removing the grinning idiot from his sight. 

He lay there for a moment gathering strength and then tried to push himself up, his eye on a security guard approaching from down the hallway. Before he could get very far he felt a strong hand pulling him up and supporting his weight with an arm around his shoulders. It was Doctor Wilson.

"Easy Greg, I've got you."

He got the crutches under his control again and leaned on them heavily, moving away from Wilson. 

"Bet you're eating this up. Do you like watching me like this? Does it give you a warm tingly feeling in your soft bits?”

"What happened to you wasn’t my choice. I told Cuddy she shouldn't do it."

"Might not be your choice but it doesn't stop you from enjoying it."

The security guard was hovering nearby, eyeing Greg suspiciously. Wilson starting moving off and gestured for him to follow. He reluctantly fell into step besides Wilson.

"You know, you could try being a little bit less suspicious of everything I do – I have never harmed you. I never will."

"Everybody lies."

They were at the door of Cuddy's office when Greg stopped and looked at Wilson.

"I have to go and see Doctor Cuddy."

Wilson nodded.

"Yes, I know, she wants to see me as well."

They entered the office together, Wilson moving smoothly to take a seat in front of the desk. Greg hovering by the door. Cuddy looked up at them from behind her desk.

"Come in Greg. You may sit down in a chair if you want."

"Being nice to the cripple?"

"Unless you want to come and kneel by my side?" Cuddy asked dryly.

Greg shuffled further into the room, taking a seat next to Wilson but edging away from him, fiddling with the crutches.

Cuddy showed them a thick file sitting on her desk.

"Your medical file, Greg. Apparently you have been unco-operative with your physical therapist since the operation. If you don't do the exercises the residual limb won't heal well and there may be complications."

"The stump you mean."

"The _residual limb_. I won't allow you to damage the hospital's property, Greg. You will follow the regime laid out. A guard will come and collect you every morning at eight and escort you to physical therapy. The therapist will report to me about your progress, or lack thereof. If she is not happy with your efforts then the appropriate punishment for disobeying my orders will be administered. Do you understand?"

He stared at the carpet. 

"Greg?"

He looked up, hollow blue eyes meeting hers.

"Yes, I understand."

"Good. I am also assigning Doctor Wilson here to keep an eye on how the residual limb is healing. You will obey all his instructions regarding care."

"I can check it myself."

"Doctor Wilson will do that. That is, if you have no objection, Doctor Wilson? I wouldn't normally ask a department head to attend to a slave's medical needs but I thought you might find it agreeable, under the circumstances."

"I wouldn't want to inflict Greg onto some poor unsuspecting intern. I would be happy to do it."

"I bet you would," Greg muttered under his breath.

"Good. Now that's settled we come to the question of drugs. Greg has detoxed from the opiates by now, however he has proven himself to be an addict on more than one occasion. We will, of course, still have to be vigilant. "

"I only took the drugs because I was in pain. I still have some pain coming from this little stump you left me."

"Some sensitivity is to be expected. Ibuprofen should be sufficient. Doctor Wilson will give it to you as needed, and totally at his discretion. You will not take any other drugs. Is that clear, Greg?"

He stared at the ground, mouth working, and tightened his grip on the crutches. At length he looked back at Cuddy.

"Yes."

"You will be subject to random drug tests – if any other drugs are found in your bloodstream, or excessive quantities of the ibuprofen, the penalties will be severe."

"More severe than cutting off my leg?"

Cuddy stared at him, her expression stony. Wilson tensed, looking between her and Greg. Cuddy had always tolerated a certain degree of insolence from Greg but Wilson knew that tolerance had its limits. Greg was testing those.

"Any more smart remarks Greg and you can spend the rest of the day wearing a gag. Do I make myself clear? You may say – 'yes, Ma'am'."

There was a tense silence and then Greg said in a small voice.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Good. Don't test my patience, Greg. I've always shown you a great degree of leniency and given you freedoms that the other slaves don't have. You've abused that trust and caused me a great deal of trouble. I'll be keeping you on a very short leash for now, and I have no problem with making that a literal leash if you cause me any more problems."

Greg stared at the floor. Wilson wondered if he was thinking of the time that Vogler had ordered Chase to leash him and take him back to diagnostics. Or when Wilson dragged him through the hospital on a leash. He knew that Greg hated being restrained like that.

"One more thing, Greg. You needn't think that your disability will get you out of any clinic hours. I will excuse you from clinic for two weeks until you have had a chance to heal and become proficient with crutches. After that you will go back on your usual schedule. A stool will be provided in the exam room for your use."

"You may go now, Greg. I need to discuss your treatment plan with Doctor Wilson." Cuddy dismissed the slave.

Greg stood up slowly, using his crutches for balance. Making himself small he asked in a respectful tone of voice.

"Can I have my books back? I need them."

Cuddy pulled open a bottom drawer and removed a thick textbook. She opened it, revealing a hollowed out hiding place.

Greg swallowed hard and looked at the floor.

"You need them like you need this lupus textbook?"

"It's never lupus," Greg said quickly with a grin and then sobered. His eyes darted to her and then away, obviously trying to decide if that qualified as a 'smart remark'.

Cuddy narrowed her eyes but let it go.

"You'll be paying for the cost of that book with additional clinic hours. I will return the other books to the diagnostics office when I decide you have earned them back. In the meantime if you need any of them for your work you may send a fellow to collect them from my assistant. They will be returned to me after you have consulted them."

Greg looked like he wanted to protest further but closed his mouth deliberately and made his way out of the office.

Cuddy waited until he was out of earshot and then sat back in her chair with a sigh.

"I knew when I bought him for the hospital that I was buying trouble. If only Stacy had stayed. He was much easier to control when she was here."

Wilson stiffened at the mention of Stacy. Cuddy had mentioned her before; supposedly she was the love of Greg's life. Wilson hated her without even meeting her. 

"He's worth a lot more than when I bought him. We could sell him. Most of the board wants to sell him. The discipline problem he brings, the altercations with patients, their families, and the other doctors. They don’t think he’s worth it. Most of the staff resent the fact that a slave has any authority at all. The drug abuse is close to being the last straw. By having his leg amputated I have bought him some time but if he causes any further trouble I don't know if I'll be able to keep him here."

Cuddy looked Wilson over.

"I know you are interested in him, if you were to tag him I would offer no objections."

* * *

Wilson called Greg to a clinic exam room later that day. He came in warily, balanced on his crutches, a closed expression on his face.

"Sit down, I need to examine the residual limb and check how it's healing. Cuddy gave me this job, and I'm going to do it whether you like it or not."

Greg hitched himself up on the exam table.

"Fine. Check out the stump, see how the freak is going."

Wilson laughed.

"You're not a freak, Greg. This is not the first amputated limb I've seen, I've done five this month so far. I'm an oncologist, I'm not new to the idea of lopping off a limb to save a life, or to save someone pain. Now pull your jeans down so I can have a look at it."

Reluctantly Greg pulled his jeans down, looking away from the sight of his right leg, the stump of which was covered in bandages. Wilson carefully unwrapped them, probing the healing flesh with his fingers. He missed the sight of that intriguing scar, but this fresh wound was also strangely enticing.

"Looks like it's healing well. You need to do your exercises though, keep it in shape for a prosthetic."

Greg looked at him, his eyes bleak.

"You really think they'll ever get me one? Why would they waste that sort of money on a slave when I can hop around here well enough to do my job?"

"It might take some time. If you can just stay out of trouble for a while, maybe one day she’ll agree to it."

Greg shrugged.

"You don't make bargains with the MRI machine, Wilson. That's all I am. They don't need to bribe me to make me do my job."

"You're not an MRI machine to me, Greg. I would like to be your friend."

Greg looked at him and widened his eyes.

"Is that what you told all your ex-wives? That you just wanted to be their friends?"

Greg pulled his jeans up over the newly bandaged stump and struggled back to his feet, grabbing the crutches from where they lent next to the desk.

"You don't want to be my friend. You want to own me."


	3. Chapter 3

Wilson was waiting the next morning when Greg was returned from his physical therapy session. Two large guards walked either side of him as he made his way down the hall using the elbow crutches. When Greg had used a cane the guards had habitually taken it from him as they escorted him around the hospital but that option obviously wouldn't work anymore. Still, it wasn't like Greg could do anything much with both his hands occupied with the crutches.

Greg was walking with his head down, pain written in every step he took. His white t-shirt was soaked with sweat. Wilson knew that the physical therapists kept a few handy discipline tools for use when dealing with slaves, and they were authorised to use them when needed. A quick stroke with a crop to whatever part of the body was handy was known to keep a slave motivated and co-operative with their therapy. He had no doubt that any therapist dealing with Greg would quickly resort to such measures.

He waited until Greg had entered the diagnostics office and the guards had departed before wandering next door. Greg was lying back in his recliner chair, hands working at what remained of his right leg. He looked up as Wilson entered and Wilson handed him a cup of coffee.

"You look like hell."

Greg grunted, accepting the coffee but making no move to drink it.

"Don't just stand there enjoying the view, give me something for the pain."

Wilson smiled, patting his pocket.

"I have it here; you can have it in a minute. Drink your coffee."

Greg scowled at him but then began to drink.

"I still have your things you know, whenever you want them." A while back Greg had asked Wilson to stash away the few personal items he'd managed to keep. They, at least, had escaped Cuddy's purge of his office area. No doubt they would have been quickly confiscated and destroyed if she'd found them.

Greg nodded but made no verbal answer, his eyes going back to the floor. His body language was practically screaming 'fuck off' but Wilson ignored it. He had something Greg wanted. A little conversation wouldn't hurt the other man.

"Where are your team?"

"They were here to see me hauled off to the torture chamber this morning. I don't know where they are now. Don't care."

"Maybe they'll find a case. It's been a while since you've had one, hospital will be wondering why they're paying you." Wilson grinned at his joke.

Greg shifted in his chair, rubbing again at the stump and then at his arm. When Wilson looked at it he could see two bright red welts across his forearm. His eyes stayed riveted to the welts as he began to feel that little flutter of excitement that he knew so well.

Greg saw where he was staring and moved his hand to cover the marks.

"You could complain to Cuddy. They shouldn't be hitting you there, not that hard."

Greg laughed but it was a flat tired laugh.

"Yeah, I'm Cuddy's favourite slave right now, I'm sure she'll get right on to the slave union about that. Oh wait, there isn't one."

"I'll have a word to her. Get them to stop abusing you."

Greg looked up, anger flaring in his eyes.

"You're not my boss and I don't see your tag on my collar so keep out of my business. Just give me some ibuprofen and get out."

Wilson's own temper flared. He had done nothing but try and help Greg and this was the attitude he got. Well Greg could live without his pain killers for a while, Wilson had better things to do that stand here and be yelled at by a slave.

"I think you can just do without it for now. You shouldn’t have that much pain anyway, without your leg. The physical act of taking pills can be addictive – even if ibuprofen isn’t. I’ll come back later and see if you have a better attitude."

Wilson stalked out, brushing past the returning fellows on his way.

The fellows settled around the conference table. Things had been slow recently. First with House being ... absent, and then for a couple of weeks while he was recuperating from the amputation. They'd gone off to trawl for cases that morning, knowing he was coming back to work. House was always easier to deal with when he was engaged in a good case. Foreman thought he needed to get back to his puzzles as soon as possible. Sitting around idly was just causing him to dwell on what happened. It had happened, it had been wrong, and Foreman had said so but they all needed to move on. 

They'd found a case in the ER, made copies of the file and now were busily reading through it. House tended to take in all the details at a glance and they liked to give themselves some time before presenting it to him so they could be ready to go with suggestions. As they read the man himself crutched into the office. Foreman thought he looked tired and worn down even though it was only early in the day.

They'd all been here when he'd been taken away this morning. Foreman had thought it ridiculous, a grown man needing to be forcibly escorted to have therapy which would only help him cope with his disability. If only House would be more compliant Cuddy wouldn't be forced to be so heavy handed with his discipline. The other slaves in the hospital never seemed to need the constant supervision that he did.

A hand reached out and snatched away the file he was reading. Foreman spun around to see House holding the file away from him. He registered two things, that House's eyes were now a bit less tired and that there were two red weals across his forearm that hadn't been there this morning. Foreman thought he might have fallen doing his therapy and hurt himself, but he'd been a doctor long enough to recognise that those marks had been deliberately inflicted.

When he looked across the table at Cameron and Chase he could see that they had registered the fact too. Cameron was staring intently at the table and Chase was chewing on a pen which already looked to be in the last stages of its useful life. They were all determinedly not looking at the marks on Dr House's - _Greg's_ \- arm or the collar around his neck or the missing right leg.

House looked down at the weals on his forearm and then stared at Foreman, eyes wide and challenging.

"Female patient, 35 years old, presents with stomach pain, two hours later vomiting blood and experiencing hallucinations and partial paralysis of the right arm." Foreman steadily presented the case.

He thought he noted a flicker of gratitude in House's eyes but then House insulted him, mocked them all and sent them off to do a myriad of tests while he apparently intended to lounge in his cubbyhole doing absolutely nothing. Foreman gathered up his file and notes and wondered again why he was answerable to a damn slave. He cast a last glance back at House. He was slumped down in a chair at the conference room table, his head hanging down and his hand rubbing at his stump of a right leg.

* * *

Wilson relented at lunch time, bringing food and the ibuprofen to the office next door. Greg was at the conference table, staring at the white board, the fellows were nowhere to be seen.

"Patient crashed. Team are stabilizing him," Greg reported crisply at Wilson's enquiring look. This was Dr House now, the weary slave banished to the background and the world famous doctor emerging. He took a huge bite of the sandwich Wilson had put down on the table, grabbing the pills and swigging them down with some water.

"You're welcome." Wilson muttered wryly. Greg stared at him, a look of wide eyed innocence on his face. Wilson couldn't help but smile back.

"At least your mood has improved."

"Dying patients, there should be more of them."

Greg looked down as his pager beeped insistently.

"Apparently they've found something they need me to see. Don't they know I'm a cripple?" He lumbered to his feet, reaching awkwardly for his crutches. Wilson grabbed up the rolltop that was lying on the table.

"Here, better put this on."

"Yeah, 'cos the collar will be the only thing they notice is odd about their doctor." Greg reached for the garment but then got caught up with crutches and trying to keep his balance.

"Stand still." Wilson came over and took the top out of his hands. As Greg lent back against the table Wilson pulled the garment over his head, smoothing it down with his hands and then fixing the top of it so it concealed the collar. His fingers lingered there, feeling the cool metal, imagining clipping a tag to it.

Greg jerked away from him and took up his crutches, his chin lifted as he stared at Wilson.

Wilson sighed and gestured to the door.

"Come on, I'll do down with you."

Wilson knew that any trip Greg made through the hospital alone left him open to the advances of the other hospital staff. Technically they shouldn't interfere with his work, but that didn't always stop them. Now that Greg had to use the elevators instead of the stairs he would be particularly vulnerable.

Greg shot him a look that seemed to be half gratitude and half irritation but said nothing, letting Wilson walk alongside him with no protest.

The elevator was empty except for a senior doctor, Dr Farring. Wilson knew the man of course, they had sat opposite each other at Departmental meetings but he had never warmed to him. There were rumours of various kinds about him, hints of severe treatment of the slaves in his department. Wilson noticed that Greg had made himself look as small as possible, tucking his elbows in, ducking his head and looking at the floor as if he could escape notice.

Farring, on the other hand, was staring intently at Greg, a slight smile playing around his lips.

"Doctor Wilson, I see you've met the diagnostics slave? Greg is very talented, aren't you Greg?"

Greg shrugged, casting a sideways glance at Wilson and then at the display panel, watching the floor numbers change.

"Greg and I have had a number of ... consults. I'm hoping to have more in the future. I heard about your amputation, Greg. You seem to be managing quite nicely with the crutches. They suit you. Your leg should have been taken years ago. I've suggested it many times but Dr Cuddy has always dismissed the idea. It’s nice to see that she finally realised it would be better for you."

"Better for you, you mean," Greg muttered. The easy smile left Farring's lips and he reached a hand out, tilting Greg's chin up so that their eyes met. Greg jerked his head away.

"Don't be insolent, Greg. Maybe you should come to my office and we should discuss your behaviour in more depth."

"Greg has a patient to see. I'm taking him there now." Wilson intervened, his eyes darting between Greg and Farring. He knew that the guards made use of Greg quite often, but had never seen a senior doctor express such an interest. A ball of jealousy was sitting in his stomach and he wanted nothing more than to flatten the other doctor. The elevator reached their floor and Wilson started out.

"Come on, Greg."

Greg put his head down and followed Wilson out of the elevator. Farring called out after Wilson.

"You should really put him on a leash, Dr Wilson. I have heard you are fond of using those. Perhaps you might join Greg and me for a consult one day."

The doors shut and Wilson breathed a sigh of relief.

"What a creep."

He was going to say more but a loud yell grabbed his attention. Chase was leaning out of a patient room yelling at Greg to come and see something. With surprising speed Greg made his way down the hallway and into the patient's room.

Left alone, Wilson turned and went back the way he came. Farring had aroused his interest, and his suspicion. He intended to find out a bit more about the man.


	4. Chapter 4

Wilson had made it a part of his routine to eat lunch with Dr Cuddy once a week. He had two interests in her, firstly she was the Dean of Medicine so had full control over the entire hospital. Her support could make or break Wilson's department, and his pet projects. She was a good woman to have on his side. The second reason he wanted to cultivate a relationship with her was that she was Greg's direct supervisor.

So once a week he met her at a small café just outside the grounds of the hospital and they had a pleasant lunch. For a woman in such a powerful position she seemed somewhat lonely and Wilson had always been good with lonely women.

After they had eaten their lunch he ventured a casual question about Dr Farring. The other man's interest in Greg had set alarm bells ringing and he wanted to know all there was to know about him.

Cuddy looked at him sharply and asked him why he was interested.

Wilson shrugged and kept his voice casual.

"Ran into him in an elevator a couple of days ago while I was with Greg. He seemed very interested in him and made a couple of unsavoury comments."

Cuddy fiddled with her wine glass.

"Interesting that you should ask about him now. He has given notice of an item he wants to put on the agenda for the next Board meeting. He wants to bring diagnostics into his department of Internal medicine making it a sub department and answerable to him."

"That would mean Greg would be in Farring’s department rather than running his own?"

Cuddy nodded.

"Yes, it's been proposed before. Many of the Board members are concerned with having a slave run his own department. I've had to fight off this type of thing before. They think that it would be better to have Greg working for another department."

"And you don't agree?"

"No. Greg works best with some autonomy. I want him to pass on his skills to as many doctors as he can, I think that is best accomplished with the set-up we have. Being in another department would stifle the operations of diagnostics. Of course Greg has made it more difficult with this drug abuse thing, and his constant need for discipline. Many of the Board think I am too soft on him, that we should either sell him or adopt the type of solution that Farring is proposing."

Wilson thought about it. If Greg was working for another department he would be subject to any discipline the Department head wanted to hand out, on the spot. As it was, no-one in the hospital could discipline him physically without Cuddy's authorisation. Well, except for the physical therapy staff, they had authorisation for on-the-spot discipline for all slaves that came to them for therapy.

He realised that there was something else troubling Cuddy though, more than the general idea of a hospital reorganisation.

"So, Doctor Farring ... " he prompted.

Cuddy sighed, and looked around, lowering her voice.

"There have been rumours about him. Dr Farring favours having slaves in his department who have physical disabilities. Several slaves who originally were not disabled have found themselves so after a stint working for him. No slave has ever made a direct accusation of mistreatment so these are only rumours. Nonetheless I would prefer it if Greg wasn't answerable to Farring. He’s a very valuable slave, I don’t want him impaired even further. "

Wilson recalled the way the man had looked at Greg and the interest he had shown in his amputation and his crutches. He balled a fist underneath the table at the thought of Greg being under the man's direct control.

"Has he ever ... done anything ... to Greg?"

Cuddy smiled at his hesitation.

"Has he fucked him do you mean, Doctor Wilson? Probably. I don't keep tabs on the sexual relations between the slaves and the staff. Dr Farring has as much right to Greg as any other staff member. I imagine that Greg keeps out of his way as much as he can. He's never made any complaint."

Wilson wondered if any slave had ever made any complaint about anything at the hospital. From what little Wilson knew of the arbitration of such complaints a slave would risk a great deal just by making one. If a complaint was ruled against them (which was almost inevitable) the slave could be severely punished for making it.

Wilson had a feeling that Greg's stubborn pride would stop him complaining to Cuddy about anything anyone did to him in any event but Greg's body language in the elevator had convinced Wilson that he didn't want Farring anywhere near Greg.

"You will, of course, have my full support in defeating that motion of Farring’s." He assured Cuddy.

She smiled at him.

"I thought I might, Doctor Wilson. You understand that I believe that Greg's situation would be much improved if he was tagged again? While he was tagged by Stacy he was very compliant, much easier to deal with and I had few complaints about his position in the hospital."

Wilson had been intending to tag Greg as soon as he could after his divorce has been finalised. He had mentally put his plans on hold when Greg had been operated on. Wilson wasn't sure if he would feel the same about Greg now that he wasn't in constant pain and didn't have that fascinating scar on his leg. However he was finding that those feelings were as strong as ever as he watched Greg struggle around with crutches. There was a certain brokeness to the slave that excited Wilson. Oh yes, he still wanted Greg.

He was hoping that they could form some sort of relationship before that happened. He wanted Greg to _want >_ to be tagged or, if that was not possible, at least to stop shying away from Wilson's touch. He'd been cultivating him slowly, bringing him food and medication, trying to provide a friendly face in a hostile hospital. So far his efforts hadn't proven very successful but he intended to persevere. It was true that he didn't _need_ Greg's consent to tag him – no slave could really consent anyway. But he wanted Greg to ask for it. He wanted it to be for both of them. 

He smiled at Cuddy, making no direct reply to her unanswered question and changed the subject. He had time. One day he would tag Greg. He could wait until Greg wanted it too.

* * *

Foreman and Chase made their way back from the patient's room to diagnostics. House had supplied a diagnosis at the last moment, medication had been administered and the patient was well on the way to a full recovery. House's diagnostic abilities hadn't been impaired by the loss of his leg. He'd explained the diagnosis to both his students and his patient in that insufferably condescending lecturing tone he liked to use. As if he was their superior instead of a crippled slave. Foreman fought with his conflicting feelings. Admiration for the genius of the man, and alternatively a desire to snatch up a crop and teach the insolent slave a lesson he wouldn't forget in a while. It was a fantasy he often indulged in.

As the pair exited the elevator near their office they spotted House at the end of the corridor, backed up against the wall. There was a man facing him, holding a leash in one hand. 'Wilson' was Foreman's first thought but then the man turned towards him and he could see it was Doctor Farring. He was a senior doctor in the hospital, but one he hadn't had much to do with. House was leaning on one crutch and had the other gripped in his hand, slightly raised. It looked almost like he intended to strike out at the other doctor with it.

Foreman thought about the consequences for House, and therefore his fellowship, if he did hit Farring and started forward.

"Doctor House." He called out before he had thought about what he was going to say. Farring was obviously intent on taking House somewhere and it wasn't really appropriate for Foreman to intervene. It wasn't like he had House tagged. If a doctor wanted to make use of the slave and the slave had let himself be caught then according to hospital policy there was no problem, as long as it was kept out of the sight of the public.

The trouble was that House was backed up against the wall, and Foreman could see how scared he looked, and the fine tremor of his hands on his crutches.

"Doctor Foreman. Doctor Chase. Perhaps you could assist me. Please put this leash on Greg, I would like to consult with him and he seems to be reluctant to come with me. I don't want to have to call Doctor Cuddy and make a formal complaint that would get him whipped."

Foreman stared at the proffered leash, making no move to take it.

"Doctor House has a patient. We were just going to the office to brief him and do a differential. Maybe you can 'consult' with him another time."

Farring looked at Foreman, and at Chase who had moved to stand next to Foreman. He relaxed his stance, taking on a casual attitude. 

"Of course, we can't interfere with patient care. Please take him back to your office. As a slave he shouldn't be roaming around by himself. Would you like the leash?"

"No, that won't be necessary." Foreman replied, his expression stony.

Farring moved off and the three men were left standing awkwardly in the hallway. House was staring at the wall, his crutches back underneath him. Foreman waited for him to say something, a word of thanks perhaps, but House just started to crutch back towards diagnostics.

"There's a girl I saw in PT this morning. One broken arm and couldn't raise the other above her head. Idiot therapist thought she was being lazy. Go find her and do an assessment."

Chase and Foreman hurried to catch up to him.

"You saw her at PT? She's a _slave_?"

House stopped and looked at Chase.

"Slaves are people too. Oh wait, no, we're not. Still, she has a heart, lungs, breathes and shits. If you guys aren't too busy maybe we can diagnose her, save her life. Or we could just stand around and gossip. Your choice."

"Is that where you were going just now?" Foreman asked, still peeved that House hadn't thanked them for rescuing him. It wouldn't hurt him to show a little gratitude.

"Yep. Probably better if you do it though. Slave docs don't like me very much, don't know why."

House had reached the office and he balanced on the crutches just outside, his face weary.

"Look, just go and get her file and see if she's worth bothering with. I'll be here. If Cameron is around get her to bring me a sandwich. Wilson is off smooching with Cuddy today, nobody fed me."

* * *

When Wilson came into diagnostics after work that day he found Greg alone, sitting at his desk.

"Hey, new patient?"

Wilson nodded at the file on the desk.

Greg looked at it and then chucked it in the trash can.

"Could have been but she died before we could get to her."

"I'm sorry," Wilson said. He wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for. Greg was likely to be more upset over the loss of a potential puzzle than over a person's death.

Greg stared at him with those big wide blue eyes, as if he didn't know why Wilson was apologising either.

"Hey, she was just a piece of equipment, no biggie. Somebody's budget might have a bit of a hole in it this quarter though."

"She was a slave?" Wilson was startled, he had never thought of Greg treating other slaves, that duty was usually assigned to either very young inexperienced doctors, or older doctors who should long since have retired. Greg was charged out at a very high rate. No insurance policy would cover a slave for that level of care.

"Unless the collar 'round her neck was just for show. Is that something all the cool kids are doing these days?"

Wilson ignored the rhetorical question and sat a bag of food on the desk. He brought out two sets of cutlery and handed a pair to Greg.

"Here, save you taking your crippled ass all the way down to the slave canteen."

Greg eyed the fork warily but took it, poking around at the food.

"That hotel must be pretty lonely if you want to spend your evening hanging out with me."

Wilson shrugged. In truth the hotel was very lonely. He could have had his choice of half the staff of the hospital to take there with him, but he didn't want to complicate his divorce, and besides that he wanted Greg. Any other warm body would be a poor substitute.

"Eat that and you can have your meds after. How's the pain anyway?"

Greg shrugged.

"Better than when I had a leg down there, but there is this pesky thing called phantom pain. The torturers in PT don't believe in it. Godzilla down there keeps twisting the stump around, pain ramps right up." Greg chewed a mouthful of food and then grinned. "I puked this morning, right in Godzilla's lap."

Only Greg would think that was funny. Wilson glanced at his arm, expecting to see further marks.

Greg looked where Wilson was looking. The original marks had faded somewhat and there were no new ones to replace them.

"Even Godzilla can't blame me for puking when I'm in pain. She kept her distance after that though."

Wilson wondered if there wasn't more to the story but left it alone, Greg never talked about the whippings he received, much as Wilson would like to hear about them.

"Broken arm girl thought it was funny." Greg mused, playing with his food.

"Broken arm girl?"

Greg nodded in the direction of discarded file.

"Oh, well ... I guess you gave her a last moment of happiness?" Wilson ventured, feeling silly even as he was saying it.

Greg stared at him, disbelief on his face and then he slowly grinned, showing all his teeth, and barked out a harsh laugh.

Wilson grinned back.

Greg seemed much more relaxed for the rest of the meal.


	5. Chapter 5

Foreman came in early. He poked his head into the diagnostics office but Greg was nowhere in sight. Foreman had only the vaguest idea of what he might do before the fellows arrived. His time was mostly taken up by clinic duty and now his physical therapy but he was obviously at the hospital twenty four hours a day. Cuddy allowed him to sleep in the back of the diagnostics office rather than go down to basement where the others slaves lived. Foreman knew he wasn't supposed to roam around the hospital but that didn't stop him from doing it, and taking the consequences if he was caught.

Foreman continued on to the men's bathroom down the hall, pushing the door open, still deep in thought.

He slammed to a stop as he took in the sight before him. A security guard was leaning against the wall and another was standing over a slave who was kneeling on the ground. He was thrusting his cock into the slave's wide open mouth, his hands holding the slave's head in place. The slave was Greg.

Foreman made an inarticulate sound of protest and the three men turned to look at him. Greg immediately looked away but the guard leaning against the wall greeted Foreman casually.

"Hey Doc, want a turn? Kevin's nearly finished and I've had my go."

Foreman shook his head, turning away from the sight of the guard climaxing in Greg's mouth.

"Aren't you on duty?" he asked the guard. Nobody was supposed to use any of the hospital’s slaves when there were supposed to be working.

"Nope, just did Greg's piss test. That was our last thing before the end of the shift. Timed it like that. He's a hard slave to pin down otherwise." He sounded pleased with himself.

Foreman was rooted to the spot. Technically there was nothing wrong with what the guards were doing. They had taken advantage of their assignment to take Greg to the bathroom for a ‘random’ drug test, but if they were off duty there was nothing to stop them making use of a slave. Foreman knew it happened to Greg, but knowing it and seeing it were different things.

The other guard had finished and he withdrew, using Greg's t-shirt to wipe himself off. Then he zipped himself up and looked enquiringly at Foreman.

"What about it doc? I've got him all warmed up for you."

Foreman turned his head to stare at Greg. He was sitting on the ground, legs in front of him, boxers and pants around his ankles, his white t-shirt was sweaty and stained. His hands were cuffed behind his back. He looked up briefly to meet Foreman's eyes and then turned his head away. For just one moment Foreman thought about saying yes, he would take a turn. Imagined Greg's mouth around his cock. Greg kneeling at his feet and doing everything he could to please him.

"No," he said aloud. "No, let him get dressed, he has physical therapy this morning."

The guard shrugged.

"Your loss, he gives a great blow job." He turned to Greg and roughly released the cuffs holding him. "See you next time, Greg."

They both left, leaving Foreman and Greg alone in the bathroom. Greg's crutches were leaning up against a wall and Foreman went to go and get them, taking his time so that Greg could put his clothes to rights. When he returned he planted one of the crutches on the ground and Greg used it to get to his feet, pulling his pants all the way up and fastening them. Greg didn't look at Foreman and Foreman made no effort to meet his eyes either.

"They do that every time you have a drug test?" Foreman asked, filling the awkward silence.

"What do you care?' Greg snarled, his hands tightening their grip on his crutches.

"I'd rather not walk in on it."

"Better use some other bathroom then."

* * *

Wilson watched from the doorway of his office as Greg made his slow way out of the elevator and headed towards diagnostics. He was returning from his morning physical therapy session. He would have a few minutes rest and then have to report for clinic duty. He was always in pain after these sessions. They were working both his stump and his other leg and also both his arms and shoulders to give him more strength for the crutches. After a brief respite after the surgery he was reporting increased pain in the right leg - phantom pain from the amputated limb, although Greg insisted there was nothing phantom about it. Wilson was still giving him two doses of ibuprofen a day but it didn't seem to be enough for the pain. Wilson had considered approaching Cuddy for authority for a higher level of pain relief, but had held off. It was unlikely that she would allow Greg anything stronger anyway, not with his history. Greg would just have to suffer through this period and the pain should fade with time. A lot of it was probably psychological anyway. He was craving the stronger opiates he used to have before the operation.

"Greg," he called out. "Come in here."

Greg wearily changed course and crutched his way to Wilson's office.

"I have clinic duty."

Wilson rolled his eyes.

"Yes, I know Greg. God forbid you should be late. I have breakfast for you."

He gestured to the pastry and cup of coffee that he had placed on his desk. Greg entered grudgingly and took a seat in front of the desk. He picked up the coffee in one hand and then abruptly set it back down as he tensed where he was sitting, his face distorting in pain.

Wilson watched for a moment as Greg furiously rubbed at what remained of his right leg, his body bent over it. Rising, he came around beside Greg and knelt down, batting Greg's hands away and replacing them with his own. He held his hands there for a moment, exerting slight pressure.

"That's not helping."

"What would help then?"

"Drugs."

"You can have the ibuprofen in a minute, when you eat something." Wilson gently stroked the stump, hidden below the coarse material of the pinned up jeans.

"Something stronger." There was a note of desperation in Greg's voice and Wilson looked up to meet the pleading eyes. "I need something stronger."

"Greg, I can't, if they test you and find any opiates we’ll both be in a heap of trouble."

"You won't get into trouble. I'll say I stole them."

"You'll be whipped."

"I don't care. It will stop this pain for a while." Greg reached out a hand, tracing his fingers over the bulge in Wilson's pants. "I can make you feel good if you give me something."

Wilson stood up, out of Greg's reach.

"No. I can't give you anything, and I don't want that from you, not like this."

Greg looked up at him with those big wide eyes.

"But you do want it."

Wilson couldn't deny it, his own body was making it plain just how much he wanted Greg.

"Not like this." He pushed Greg's food towards him. "Eat that and I'll give you your pills, they'll help a little bit. I'll talk to Cuddy about your meds and about the PT. Maybe they should go a bit slower on that."

Greg just stared at the food and Wilson hardened his voice a little, making it plain that it was an order not a request.

"Eat it, Greg. You need your medication and I'm not giving it to you on an empty stomach."

Greg glanced up at him and then deliberately tore off a bit of pastry and shoved it in his mouth, chewing loudly.

After the pastry had been mostly eaten Wilson handed over the pills and watched as Greg greedily gulped them down with a mouthful of water. Then he struggled up on his crutches.

"I've got to get to the clinic."

Wilson observed the fine tremor in his body. Greg was still in pain, and exhausted, although the day had hardly begun.

"I'll call you in sick."

"On a Monday morning? That will make you popular."

Greg was right. Monday morning was always the clinic's busiest. Wilson could call Greg in sick, if he was bleeding or unconscious but not otherwise.

"I'll come down with you."

Greg nodded shortly. If Wilson went with him at least he would get there without being hassled or delayed.

When they got to the clinic there was a young boy jumping up and down on one of the chairs screaming, his mother ignoring him while she read a magazine. Greg looked at Wilson.

"That one will be mine." The nurses usually gave the worst of the clinic patients to Greg as there was no chance of him complaining or refusing to do more duty. As he struggled up to the reception desk the nurse in charge stared at him.

"You're late. I’ll mark you in at half past." It was only ten past, that meant another twenty minutes of clinic duty for Greg but he just nodded. The nurse shoved a blue file at him. "Room 1, get moving, we're backed up."

He disappeared into the exam room without saying goodbye to Wilson and the woman and unruly child followed shortly thereafter. Wilson quickly left before he could get corralled into clinic duty. He'd check on Greg after his shift finished and make sure he was doing okay. Maybe Greg would like Wilson to massage his right leg. Wilson would like to do that.

* * *

Doctor Cuddy listened with little patience to the outraged woman in her office. She had a young boy in tow who was busy running around her office, touching everything he could while his mother ignored him and carried on complaining in a shrill voice.

"..and the very idea of having a _slave _touch my son. We came into your clinic because Tommy has an upset stomach and that _slave___ yelled at him. He told Tommy that if he didn't eat so much he wouldn't have an upset stomach."

Cuddy eyed the boy in question and privately agreed with Greg. The child could certainly do with consuming a few less calories.

"Of course we didn't know he was a slave at first. Nobody warned us. He was wearing a top covering his collar. It was only after I told him that he was rude that he told us he was a slave. He took off his top and just stood there half naked. Tommy was very upset. I don't let him see things like that."

"No, of course not," Cuddy murmured, her thoughts filled with just what she was going to do with Greg as soon as she got this annoying woman out of her office.

"And then Tommy asked him a simple question and the _slave_ screamed at him."

"What did Tommy ask him?"

"I asked him if that was why he only had one leg. Did the hospital cut the other one off because he was a slave?" Tommy answered from where he was busy trying to climb up one of Cuddy's bookcases. 

"And he screamed at Tommy and said no they cut off his leg because he asked too many stupid questions and if Tommy wasn't careful they'd cut off his leg as well!"

Cuddy closed her eyes briefly in disbelief. This was the last thing she needed. She'd been trying to rally the support of other Board members to keep diagnostics as an autonomous department and now this. When word got around the hospital, and it would, the Board members would be even more inclined to go along with Farring's suggestion.

She made reassuring noises to the woman and asked her if she would like Greg to be brought before her to give her an apology for his disgraceful behaviour. The woman haughtily refused and said she wanted nothing more to do with the _slave_. She extracted a promise from Cuddy that the appropriate punishment would be dished out and Cuddy readily agreed. She had something special in mind for Greg this time.

When the woman and her brat had finally been ushered out, with promises of lifetime priority medical care for them both, she picked up the phone.

"Bring Greg to my office, urgently."

A few minutes later there was a knock on the door and security entered with Greg. They had apparently decided that a wheelchair would be best for situations where he wasn't to have his crutches. Both his wrists were cuffed to the arms of the chair.

They wheeled him in and parked him in front of Cuddy's desk. They then retreated to stand at the back of the office.

"I'm sure I don't need to tell you why you are here, Greg. I don't know what bizarre reason you had for scaring that little boy or what you hoped to accomplish. What I will do is make sure you think twice before you open your smart mouth next time."

Without waiting for him to respond she looked at one of the guards.

"Go and fetch a gag please."

She looked back at Greg.

"You'll be wearing a gag for the rest of today, since you can't seem to keep your mouth shut by yourself. Someone will be with you at all times to make sure you don't come to any harm. It will be taken out for mealtimes, for your evening clinic shift and for five minutes each hour to allow you to drink. Your team will be in charge of the gag, they will be given instructions on when it can be removed, and when it is to be reinserted. If you fight them on reinserting it I will add another two days."

Greg was staring at her, his eyes wide and his face pale. She was pleased to have made an impact.

"You can't involve my team. I need to have their respect to be able to function."

Cuddy laughed.

"You're a slave, Greg. Just how much respect do you think they have for you? Obviously you don't care if the patients in the clinic have any respect for their doctor, or for this hospital."

The guard re-entered the office, a leather gag dangling from one hand. He was grinning. Gagging Greg had been pretty much a dream of his since his first day at the hospital.

"Open your mouth, Greg," Cuddy ordered, her eyes on him. He kept his mouth stubbornly shut.

"Open your mouth, Greg. If you don’t we’ll force it and you can wear the gag for a week and I'll add in a whipping as well. You have five seconds."

Greg slowly opened his mouth, letting the guard slip the bit between his teeth and then buckle the gag securely at the back of his head.

Cuddy looked away, writing some notes on a piece of paper. She sealed it in an envelope and gave it to one of the guards.

"Unshackle Greg and give him back his crutches. He can crutch his way back to diagnostics. Go with him to make sure he gets there. Give this note to his team. They are to call me if they have any questions."

* * *

Wilson was crossing the foyer when he noticed Greg making his way across the reception area, head down, swinging along on his crutches.

There was a guard with him, but trailing a step or two behind and Wilson hurried across the floor to see what was going on. As he approached, Greg looked up and Wilson saw with a shock that he had been gagged. His mind flashed to the night that Greg had spent bound and gagged on the diagnostics office floor. That had been Vogler's doing and he was long gone. Surely Cuddy hadn't had him gagged?

He intercepted them as they crossed his path. "What's going on? Why are you gagged?"

Greg looked at him and Wilson could clearly see the word 'moron' in Greg's mind. He flushed and turned to the guard instead.

"Why is he gagged?"

"Doctor Cuddy's orders. I have instructions for his team here. I have to deliver Greg and the instructions to diagnostics. "

"I'll go with him," Wilson volunteered. He wanted to know what that letter said. He also wanted to watch Greg. Seeing him helpless like this was doing weird things to Wilson. He missed Greg's voice but the sight of his jaws propped open like this made him seem so vulnerable and open. At that moment Wilson wanted nothing more than to shove Greg to his knees and fuck him senseless, here in front of everyone. He wanted to show them all who Greg belonged to. Greg wouldn't be able to voice any protests and the thought of that pleased Wilson.

The guard wavered but Wilson was a senior doctor and eventually he let Wilson take over escort duty.

They entered an escalator together. Two nurses were in the car and they took in the sight of ‘Doctor House’, collar exposed and gagged. They both smiled, exchanging glances with each other. There weren't many medical staff in the hospital who hadn't dreamed of having the loud mouth slave gagged. Greg glanced at them and then back at the floor. The trip was conducted in utter silence.

As they were nearing the entrance to diagnostics Wilson made an attempt at conversation.

"You doing okay, Greg? You can breathe all right?"

Greg looked at him and then nodded. Wilson could practically feel his frustration at not being able to talk.

"I don't know what you did to deserve this, and obviously you can't tell me. We'll have to get you a notepad or something."

Wilson pushed the door open for Greg and found the three fellows sitting at the table.

They all looked up in shock at the sight of Greg, his mouth held open by the gag. He glared at them.

Wilson handed the envelope to Foreman.

"Doctor Cuddy said to give this to you."

Foreman ripped it open and took out the brief note.

"Greg is to remain gagged for the rest of the day. One of you should be in the room at all times while he is gagged. You may remove the gag every hour for five minutes and then reinsert it. It can be removed for thirty minutes at lunch and dinner. Security will come for him for his clinic hours and deal with it then. If Greg resists at all you will immediately inform me. "

Foreman threw the note down on the table.

"This isn't right, Doctor Wilson. Whatever he has done _we_ shouldn't be involved in his punishment."

"You're probably right but would you rather security come and do it every hour? At least you guys will try and ensure you don't hurt him. Make sure he has something to drink every time you take the gag out, and check his jaw."

Foreman noticed that they were already speaking as if Greg wasn't in the room. He glanced at the slave, for it was definitely Greg the slave standing there gagged, not Doctor House the respected physician.

He shook his head, the whole situation was bizarre.

"I've got an appointment in a minute, you three need to deal with this. Take it in shifts or something." Wilson glanced over at Greg. "I'll bring you lunch, check on how you are going."

Greg just looked at him and then turned away, going into his little cubbyhole and slamming himself down on his chair, hands rubbing away at the stump of his leg.

The fellows decided between themselves that the best thing they could do was be professional. They set an alarm for the top of every hour and took turns to go and remove the gag from their boss's mouth. Foreman volunteered to go first and entered Greg's little cubbyhole right on time. He nodded to his boss and then reached around behind him to unbuckle the gag. Quickly he slipped it out of his mouth and threw it down on the desk with disgust. Disciplining a slave was one thing, humiliating them was another as far as he was concerned. Whatever else he might be Greg was a brilliant, world famous, doctor and he didn't deserve to be treated like this.

Greg closed his mouth up, working his jaw up and down and side to side. His mouth was obviously dry and he swallowed a couple of times before trying to speak. He made no effort to thank Foreman, instead he croaked out a request for a drink.

Foreman passed him a bottle of water and then waited while Greg drank the contents.

"You could put in a formal complaint to the Board."

Greg looked at him incredulously.

"Look, I know slaves don't have a lot of rights but what they did with your leg was borderline illegal. Then there's what happened this morning with the guards. They shouldn't be taking advantage of you having random drug tests. This latest punishment, it shouldn't involve your employees. There are channels you could go through. There are laws regarding how people can treat their slaves."

Greg looked away, down at the floor, his jaw still working. His hand strayed to his thigh to rub at the remaining muscle.

"I used to think that too. That I could complain about what happened to me. That somebody would protect me from it. I don't any more. Nobody cares what the MRI machine thinks about what use is made of it."

"You're not an MRI machine."

"Yeah, I used to think that as well, but now I know I'm just hospital equipment." Greg stared at the far wall. "There are worse things than a gag and giving a blow job, and the worse things tend to happen to slaves who complain. You never found out what happened to broken arm girl did you?"

Foreman frowned but then was interrupted as his watch alarm sounded, Greg's five minutes reprieve was up.

"Put the gag back in," Greg said in a low voice, still not looking at Foreman.

Foreman picked up the gag, staring at it as it dangled from his hand.

"She won't know if we are a bit late ..."

Greg shook his head and then opened his mouth. Reluctantly Foreman slipped the gag back in his mouth and fastened it at the back of his head.

Foreman went to leave but then stopped at the door.

"Doctor House?"

Greg looked up at him, muted, his eyes tired, his face weary.

"What happened in the bathroom this morning ... I will never 'take a turn', I want you to know that."

Greg stared at him, looking small and vulnerable in his collar and gag and then nodded and turned away.

As Foreman went back to the outer office he saw a guard pass along the corridor and glance into Greg's little office, checking that the slave was gagged.

* * *

Wilson came for Greg at dinner time. He dismissed the fellows, telling them he would see to Greg. When he entered the office Greg was sitting in his chair, making no pretence of working. He was just staring into space.

Wilson smiled at him and reached around to remove the gag. He gently slipped it out of Greg's mouth and passed him a bottle of water.

After Greg had drunk his fill Wilson told him to open his mouth so he could check his jaw and his throat. Greg scowled but did so and held still while Wilson examined him.

"You'll live," Wilson reported cheerfully. He removed the Thai food he had brought from the bag, spreading it out on Greg's desk while Greg watched him with tired eyes.

"Word is that you told some kid and his mother that you were a slave, and that the hospital had your leg cut off."

"Both true," Greg pointed out.

"You must have known that Cuddy would punish you for that."

Greg shrugged. "Thought she'd have me whipped."

"And you wanted that?"

"Hey, more pain and no meds for a day, what's not to like?"

"So, more gating mechanism? Getting whipped would take away your leg pain? Seriously?"

Greg stared at his food and moved it around on his plate listlessly.

"Maybe I had a really shitty morning and just had to blow up at someone. It's not easy being a slave you know. My life sucks."

Wilson stared at him in surprise. A small tear formed in the corner of Greg's wide eyes and tumbled down his cheek. It was then that he realised Greg was mocking him.

Frustrated, he reached over and grabbed Greg's hand where it was busy stirring up his dinner into an unrecognisable mess on his plate.

Greg flinched and looked up at him, his expression wary.

"You're on a knife edge with Cuddy and the Board, Greg. She's talking about selling you. Is that what you want? To be sold and shipped off to somewhere else, far away from here, where you don't know anybody." _Somewhere away from me_ , he thought but did not say aloud. "How do you think you would fare in a new hospital? Do you think they would give you a little office and a team, and some degree of authority over that team? If you even end up at a hospital. There's a market for disabled slaves, hell there's interest in that even in this hospital. Is that what you want?"

Greg dropped his eyes and shook his head.

Wilson released Greg's hand, noticing that it was trembling slightly.

"Eat your dinner," he ordered and was surprised when Greg obeyed, mechanically spooning food up into his mouth. They finished the rest of the meal in silence.

By the time they were finished there was only ten minutes until Greg's evening clinic shift started. Greg grabbed up his roll-top, slipping it over his head. Wilson smoothed it down. His fingers lingered over Greg's collar.

"Why don't you tag me?" Greg asked in a small voice. "I know you want to."

At that moment, looking at Greg, Wilson knew exactly what he wanted. He knew why all his excuses for not tagging Greg yet were just excuses. He didn't want to just take Greg, to be like everyone else who just took what they wanted from him. He wanted Greg to come willingly and to offer his obedience. He wanted Greg to _give_ control to him rather than just let Wilson take it.

He reached out and touched Greg's hair. Then he bent Greg’s head down towards him and gave him a slow kiss on the lips, feeling the resistance there. He stood back and let him go.

"I want this to be something we both want. I want you to ask me. Then I'll tag you."

Greg shook his head.

"I don't think that's ever going to happen."

Wilson smiled.

"Then I'll never tag you."

* * *

Cuddy sat in her office, late at night. Her whole day had been filled with dealing with the aftermath of Greg's behaviour in the clinic. The stupid woman had been loud in her complaints when she'd stormed out of the examination room and most of the waiting room had heard her. Somebody had rung a reporter, who had rung Cuddy. The gist of the story they were running with was that Princeton Plainsboro's Teaching Hospital's free clinic was being staffed by unqualified slaves who had to be restrained from molesting the poor patients. Cuddy had refuted that by stating that there was one slave, that he was an extremely qualified doctor who was having a bad day and had been severely disciplined. She hoped the story would peter out before it began, with any luck there were would be some major disaster somewhere in the world to push it aside.

She would have to keep Greg out of the clinic for a few days. The clinic was important to the hospital and to her personally. She did not want its reputation besmirched by this, and she didn't want a string of reporters showing up looking for the doctor who was a slave. The hospital never lied about Greg being a slave, but they never advertised it either. Surprisingly few people were aware of Greg's status in the medical profession, and even fewer members of the general public knew.

She hated having to pull Greg out of the clinic. For one thing he did a large number of hours there, hours that would have to be made up from her other doctors, all of whom complained greatly about their clinic duty. Greg complained as well of course but she had the luxury of not caring about that. The other reason was that Greg was a damn good doctor, very quick at seeing patients, and very liable to look further than the obvious when coming up with a diagnosis. Many patients had been fortunate to have him as their doctor when they had presented with serious illnesses which might otherwise not have been diagnosed. He saved lives, and that mattered to Cuddy.

If she pulled him out of the clinic that would also be rewarding his behaviour. She couldn’t know for sure if he had pulled this stunt partly in hopes of just this outcome. He'd find the gagging humiliating and frustrating, but he'd swap one day of that for the hours he was going to miss in the clinic until this died down. She should have him whipped but that would take him out of action for even longer, and had never proven effective to curb his behaviour in the past. 

She tapped her fingers on the desk as she tried to think of a solution. She wished that Dr Wilson would tag Greg. She knew he wanted to, he’d made that blindingly obvious to everyone. He spent his day checking in on Greg, bringing him drinks and snacks and ‘hanging out’ with him. Every time they had lunch together he would steer the conversation casually back to Greg. She didn't know what was stopping him from tagging the slave. 

Greg had behaved so well when he was tagged by Stacey that she hoped that Wilson tagging him would have the same effect. She just had to come up with a way to make that happen, sooner rather than later.

Her email pinged and she turned to her inbox to see a staffing request from Doctor Farring. He had two doctors in his department out with illness and wanted to 'borrow' Greg on a temporary basis to help out. Greg was qualified in both nephrology and infectious diseases, both of which were overseen by Farring's Internal Medicine department. She laughed in contempt. Farring was nothing if not obvious in his attempts to get his hands on Greg. He might as well put a sign out - 'crippled slaves wanted'.

Normally Cuddy would turn down his request without a second thought. She preferred to keep Greg in diagnostics and the clinic where she could supervise him. And the last person she’d lend him out to would be Farring.

She was composing her curt, but polite, rejection of his proposal when a thought struck her. Wilson and shown a strong interest in Farring, and had expressed disquiet over Farring's 'unsavoury comments' to Greg. She thought it very likely that Wilson would not approve of Greg going to work under Farring, however temporary it might be. And with the threat of Farring's proposal to permanently move diagnostics under his control Wilson might be motivated to act to save Greg from the man. If Wilson had him tagged Farring wouldn't be able to touch Greg, and would most likely lose all interest in the slave.

Cuddy smiled to herself as the pieces of her plan fell into place in her mind. She tapped out a positive response to Farring, and then one to security, directing them to deliver Greg to Farring tomorrow morning rather than to the clinic. She didn't see any need to inform Greg.

There was some risk of course, Farring had a tendency to be hard on the slaves under his control and the hospital couldn't afford for Greg to be injured. She had made it very clear in her email response to Farring that Greg was on temporary loan only and he should be returned in more or less the same condition as he arrived. Of course she would do nothing to interfere with minor disciplinary measures, or any personal use Farring would like to make of the slave.

Satisfied, she logged off the computer, gathered her things and made her way out of the office.


	6. Chapter 6

Greg hadn't been kept gagged overnight but he'd still spent a very restless night, tossing and turning on his narrow bunk. It had been a long day and one filled with pain. What was left of his leg ached, his jaw was sore, and the muscles in his arms burned from using the crutches.

The humiliation of having been gagged, and having his own employees take the gag in and out all day, filled his mind. He knew that he had the status of property in the hospital, but it was something he could never quite accept. He called himself the MRI machine but it was a defensive measure, designed to protect himself from further hurt when he was treated like one. 

The one thing he could still cling to was his professional status, his team, and the authority he had over them. It was his one oasis of control in a world where he could control nothing else. Having Foreman witness the guards use of him in the bathroom, and then having the whole team participate in his gagging eroded any shred of respect that the team had for him. 

They'd taken it in turns to take the gag out and replace it. Foreman had been brusque and professional about it, Chase had tried to joke but had clearly been very uneasy. Cameron was the worst. She hadn't been able to meet his eyes all day. Her hands had trembled when she removed the gag and she had practically run from the room as soon as she could. He'd seen her peering at him through the glass wall of the office at any time she thought he wasn't looking.

He was staring at the ceiling, unable to get back to sleep, when he heard people in the outside office. He sat up in bed as four large security guards came through into his little cubby-hole. One of the guards quickly took hold of his crutches and another came forward with a pair of handcuffs.

"Put your hands out in front of you, Greg."

Greg looked past the guards to the waiting wheelchair. They normally let him use his crutches when they took him for the random drug tests. Not that the tests were that random anyway, they had quickly become timed to coincide with the end of the guards' shift so that they could make use of him while technically they were off duty.

"Now, Greg." 

"Where are you taking me?"

"Got orders to take you to the second floor. Now shut up and put your hands out. Or do you want to be gagged again?"

Greg noticed that there was a gag dangling from the hand of the guard with the wheelchair. The guards normally didn't try and gag him. It being very difficult to gag a man who wasn't co-operating. But there were four of them today, and with yesterday still fresh in his mind he decided to go along quietly. He stuck his hands out and they shackled him. Two of them lifted him bodily so he was awkwardly balanced between them and his one leg. The other guard rolled the wheelchair forward and then dropped him into it. They released the handcuffs, shackling him instead to the arms of the chair.

"I haven't had a shower, or breakfast, and I have PT this morning." Greg pointed out mildly. They ignored him and pushed him in the wheelchair down the corridor. He considered yelling but there was no-one to hear him and no-one to care.

He wondered why they were taking him to the second floor. It wasn't a place he normally frequented. Farring's Department of Internal Medicine was on that floor and he usually gave it, and Farring, a wide berth.

They made the elevator trip in silence, and then went down a corridor towards a large office at the end. Greg stiffened as he saw where they were taking him. The ornate letters on the office door spelled out Farring's name.

"Why are you bringing me here?" Greg tried to roll out of the wheelchair but was hampered by the shackles and one of the guards roughly pushed him back in and then held him there.

"Orders from Doctor Cuddy. Don't know why." The guard shoved a memo under Greg's nose. "Read that and shut up."

One of the guards knocked on the closed office door and then at a command from inside opened the door, pushing the chair in front of him.

Farring looked up from where he was sitting at his desk, drinking his coffee.

"Ah, a pleasure to see you, Greg. Doctor Cuddy has agreed to assign you to my department for a few days as we are short a couple of doctors."

"I have PT, and then clinic duty this morning." Greg said quietly, every muscle primed to flee from this man but he was unable to move.

"I will attend to your PT today, and your clinic duty has been suspended until further notice. Apparently your little stunt yesterday means it would be more prudent for you not to be in the clinic for a while."

Farring turned to the guards and dismissed them. One of them looked dubiously at Greg before releasing him from the shackles. Then he placed Greg’s crutches behind Farring's office chair, out of Greg's reach.

When they were alone Farring wheeled the chair to an examination table in the room adjacent to his office. Taking a leash down from a shelf he snapped one end onto Greg's collar. The other he held loosely in his hand.

"Now Greg, let’s take a look at that leg of yours before we begin."

* * *

Cameron came into the diagnostics office cautiously. She didn’t know if Doctor House would still be gagged today. Yesterday had been a nightmare. They'd taken it in turns to remove the gag, and replace it and when it had been her turn she'd struggled to do it. It had been so strange to see her boss like that, his mouth held open by the gag, rendered speechless by such a simple object. She’d felt sorry for him and she could feel his humiliation and frustration, and yet there was a small deep dark part of her that thrilled to the sight.

Chase and Foreman had been saying for months that she had a 'crush' on Doctor House, but she knew there was something else there. She was certain sometimes that she could see some sort of attraction to her in his eyes, in his words. She felt pity for him. He was enslaved and crippled. She felt that she could help him, given the chance. She didn't want to ‘use’ him, even if she could; she found the idea of forcing herself on him abhorrent. But the events of yesterday had aroused something in her. 

When she'd seen him there, gagged, collared and totally vulnerable she had felt something. An excitement. A quickening of the pulse. She was drawn to it and to him. She had found it difficult to tear her eyes away from the gag. She told herself it didn't mean anything, that it was just her body reacting to an unsettling situation. Last night though, she'd dreamed of a collared and gagged Greg, kneeling at her feet. When she'd woken she'd wondered, just for a moment, what it would be like to tag him.

When she looked in the office this morning she didn't know whether she would be relieved to see Greg was not still gagged, or disappointed that he wasn't.

In fact it was an anti-climax as he was not there at all. She looked at the clock, he wasn't due to start clinic for another few minutes, the fellows always got in just before he did his first shift so he could give them their instructions for the morning, not that he ever bothered if they didn't have a patient.

"Not here?" A casual voice behind her startled her and she jumped.

"Woah, you're jumpy. What's the matter? Were you expecting House to yell at you? Oh no, wait, he can't."

She turned on Chase, furious at his flippancy.

"It's not funny Chase. It was a disgrace that we were involved in that!"

Chase shrugged.

"Better that he was gagged than whipped again. I'm surprised Cuddy let him off so lightly considering what he said to that woman and her kid."

Chase went over and made himself a coffee.

"Besides, there are people who are quite happy with a gag in their mouth. How do you know he's not one of those people?"

Cameron flushed.

"You can't be suggesting that he enjoyed it!"

Chase looked towards the empty office, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"No, he hated it. But I dated a woman once who liked being burned, and another one who liked to put on a slave collar and cuffs and have me lead her around on a leash. Pretty sure they would have liked the whole gag routine. Of course it’s a bit different when you're just playing. Having no choice in the matter would suck.”

Cameron stared at him, speechless. Chase seemed so mild and inoffensive that the idea of him being one of those sorts of people startled her.

"Rich people playing at being slaves, sounds like something you would enjoy." Foreman had come up behind them quietly and stared at them with his usual disapproving expression. "Isn't he here?"

Cameron shook her head, glad to have the subject changed from the uncomfortable topic of people who might enjoy wearing gags, or enjoy others wearing them.

"No, haven't seen him."

"I wonder what he's done now." Chase mused.

Cameron jumped to his defence.

"Why do you think he's _done_ anything?

They heard the sound of Cuddy's heels before they saw her. She came bustling in, a folder in her hand.

"Dr House isn't here," Cameron said. 

"I know, Doctor Cameron. He's on temporary assignment to Internal Medicine – Doctor Farring’s department. Security had instructions to deliver him there this morning."

Foreman and Chase glanced at each other, remembering the scene they'd interrupted between Farring and House a few days ago. Foreman didn't think House would enjoy working for Farring - if working was what Farring had in mind.

"Thanks to Greg's little outburst yesterday I have reporters all over the clinic wanting to know about the Doctor who is a slave, and on top of that I have a clutch of outraged patients insisting that they don’t want to be treated by him. Greg won't be working in the clinic until the fuss dies down so you three can do the clinic hours he normally puts in."

That was a lot of clinic hours, even spread three ways, House was doing eight hours a day at the moment. 

Foreman protested first.

"With all due respect we weren't hired to work in the clinic. We are supposed to be completing a diagnostics fellowship under Doctor House."

"With all due respect, Doctor Foreman, you will work where I assign you. If you don't like the terms of your employment you are quite free to go elsewhere to seek work. Frankly Greg is far more valuable to this hospital than the three of you combined."

"What if we have a patient?"

"If a patient comes in for diagnostics then Greg will be sent back. In the meantime please contact the clinic desk and work out a schedule to cover Greg's hours."

Cuddy nodded at them and then walked away briskly.

"I can't believe she's sent him to work for Farring." Chase commented. "She must know that guy's reputation."

Cameron looked at him, puzzled.

"What do you mean?"

"Let's just say that Doctor Farring has an interest in people who are ... not quite whole."

Chase put down his coffee and slipped on his lab coat.

"For what I've heard about Farring I wouldn't want to be in Greg's shoes, or shoe in this case."

* * *

Wilson heard a knock on his office door and then watched as Chase poked his head in. The fellow smiled at him but he seemed uneasy.

"Doctor Wilson, I just thought you should know about Doctor House."

Wilson waved at Chase to come in.

"What's happened now?" Wilson was finding his life being gradually taken over by Greg. Thinking about Greg, watching Greg, looking out for Greg and getting involved in various Greg related dramas. Sometimes he wondered what he had done to fill in time before he had met the slave.

"Cuddy has sent him to Dr Farring's department, on temporary assignment. He's there now. We don't know how long for."

Wilson's first feeling was anger, and then fear for Greg. He remembered the way that the man had looked at Greg in the elevator and he’d heard the various rumours about the department head that circulated around the hospital.

"Why would she do that? She said she's against diagnostics being taken over by Internal Medicine."

Chase looked alarmed.

"Being taken over? You mean this might be permanent?"

Wilson shook his head.

"I just know that there is a proposal before the Board for diagnostics to be moved to being a sub-department under Farring. Doctor Cuddy said that she opposed it. Of course that was before yesterday. She's probably catching some flak from the Board for Greg’s little outburst in the clinic. He could have exposed the hospital, and himself, to a lot of liability."

"I gather there's been some negative publicity about it. Cuddy has pulled him from the clinic for the time being. We have to make up his hours."

Wilson grimaced sympathetically. The clinic wasn't his favourite place either.

"Maybe you should go and see if he's okay," Chase said. 

Wilson stared at him.

"He hasn't gone to the slave pens you know. He's just gone down a couple of floors."

"Yeah, but with Farring being the way he is ...,” he trailed off. “You must have heard the rumours."

"Doctor Farring is a member of the Board, and a very senior doctor in this hospital, he has the largest department in the hospital. If Cuddy authorised this then there isn't much I can do about it."

"But ---"

"The best thing you could do is find a case for him, and then Farring will have to send him back to diagnostics. There must be people suffering mysterious illnesses somewhere in New Jersey surely?"

Chase nodded slowly, looking unconvinced.

"Okay, I'll see what I can find. It's a bit slow at the moment though, people never start dying when you want them to."

Wilson kept up his professional reassuring smile until Chase had left his office. Then he slumped back into his chair. His first instinct was to go racing over to Internal Medicine and check on Greg. What he had said to Chase was true though. He ranked behind Farring in this hospital in terms of influence, and even further behind Cuddy.

The more he thought about it the more he wondered if he should even _try_ to intervene. No permanent harm was likely to come to Greg from a few days stay in Farring’s department, and it might even persuade Greg that he was better off with Wilson to look out for him. Wilson didn't think Greg had appreciated the efforts he'd made so far to care for him. He'd been bringing him food and drink, intervening for him with Cuddy and the fellows, and supplying pain medicine - all without thanks. It wouldn't hurt him to go without those little luxuries for a few days.

Wilson nodded to himself. Yes, he'd leave Greg alone there for a while. His mind made up he went back to his paperwork.

* * *

Farring had tied one end of the leash to a ringbolt set under the examination table. Greg couldn't move his head more than an inch without the collar pulling at his throat. He was trapped here, lying on his back, his jeans removed and his stump exposed. Farring had carefully unwrapped the dressings and stocking and was fingering the flesh of the stump. Mostly healed now it was still tender to the touch and every time Farring's fingers touched a little too firmly Greg flinched. Farring seemed fascinated by the stump. His fingers probed at it. Greg closed his eyes against the sight of the man lusting over his amputated limb.

Pain shot through him as Farring exerted pressure in just the wrong place at the end of the stump. He gasped and his eyes shot open to meet Farring's smiling ones. The man was leaning casually on the tender flesh.

"Now Greg, I think it would be better if your remained awake and alert during the examination don't you? I'm going to put your residual limb through some range of motion exercises. I understand that the hospital has decided not to waste money on a prosthetic leg for a slave but the residual limb must still be kept mobile."

House gritted his teeth as Farring manipulated the stump this way and that. He longed to scream at the man to get the fuck off of him but firmly kept his mouth shut. He had never been one to self censor but one thing he had learned while he was a slave was there were times when it was very prudent to be quiet and just accept what was happening to you. It wasn't like anything he could do could change it anyway.

"I'm going to enjoy having you work in my department, Greg. You're very talented for a slave. I will make good use of you. Do be aware though that I am very strict with my slaves. I expect instant obedience, and I am not afraid to discipline a slave when they need it. Doctor Cuddy has been too soft with you. I will not be."

He let go of Greg's leg, giving it one final caress, and then a quick smack on the stump which made Greg’s teeth curl. Then he stepped away from the table to wash his hands thoroughly.

"I have rounds in ten minutes and you will assist me. You may use your crutches. You will not enter any patient's room. My patients do not want a slave treating them. You may review the files and give any input before I go in and see the patient. I will tether you outside their rooms while I attend to them.” He smiled slightly. “After all, we can't have you running off back to diagnostics whenever you feel like it."

He picked up Greg's jeans from where they were lying discarded on the table. Examining the way Greg had pinned up one leg of the jeans he frowned.

"This looks very untidy."

He went over to a drawer and extracted a pair of surgical scissors and cut off the right leg of the jeans at mid-thigh level.

Tossing the jeans at Greg he unhooked the leash from the table but left it attached to his collar.

"Get dressed."

Greg quickly slipped the jeans on and stood up, balancing on the edge of the table. He stared down in despair at the right leg of the jeans. The right leg now hung just above the stump, exposing the end of it to view.

Farring smiled as he looked Greg over, his eyes lingering on the exposed stump which he had not rewrapped.

"Much better." He handed Greg the crutches and stood back. "After you."

Greg crutched out of the office, aware of Farring walking behind him the whole way. He didn't have to turn back and look to know that Farring was staring at his stump.


	7. Chapter 7

Doctor Carla Morton was running late for rounds. As an attending in Internal Medicine she was often paged whenever a resident had a crisis they couldn't handle. She was well known as the 'go to' person in the department, and a buffer between Doctor Farring and the rest of the staff. Most of the junior doctors found him intimidating and preferred to stay out of his way as much as possible. Many of the senior doctors would have also liked to stay out of his way but she didn't have that option. As the second in charge in the department Morton found herself seeing much more of him than she would have liked. 

As she came hurrying down the corridor to catch up she caught sight of the slave.

He was hard to miss. He was tall, walking on crutches and had only one leg. The amputation was high, she noted, well above the knee. He was standing awkwardly outside a patient's room, trying to peer in through the blinds. He was wearing a t-shirt so his collar stood out clearly against his skin. A leash was clipped through the collar and fastened to a tethering spot on the wall. It seemed an unnecessary precaution, one designed to humiliate rather than restrain. 

She knew who he was of course. Doctor House, the slave, was one of the most famous members of this hospital. She didn't know what he was doing here, diagnostics was two floors up, and House was generally discouraged from roaming around the hospital. He was an extremely valuable piece of property and his use was closely monitored.

She came to a halt beside him.

"Doctor House?"

He turned away from the window to stare at her. She was struck by the intensity of his stare, but also by the pain and exhaustion in his face and his body. She knew his amputation was fairly recent. The energy expenditure of walking on crutches was far higher than for walking – especially in the case of an above the knee amputation. On top of that he was probably still experiencing some degree of pain from the amputation. She also noticed that his stump was exposed. It poked out below the hem of his cut-off jeans, and wasn't wrapped and didn't have a stocking on it. She frowned. Proper care of the residual limb was important for all amputees.

"I'm Doctor Morton. I'm an attending here." Her instinct was to reach out to shake hands but that wouldn't be appropriate for a slave, even if he didn’t have crutches to contend with. "Do you have business here?"

"The guards who hauled me down to this floor seemed to think so."

A bustle from inside the room halted further conversation. Farring and his entourage of interns emerged from the patient's room. Morton waited while Farring dismissed the juniors and then came over to them. House dropped his gaze and stared at the floor, his whole body language changed as he seemed to make himself smaller and more submissive.

"Ah, Doctor Morton, nice of you to join us.” Farring said in his smooth tones. “We have, however, just finished rounds."

She didn't bother apologising. Farring hated excuses, and also knew that she wouldn't have been late without a damn good reason.

"I see that you have met our new slave, Greg. He is joining us here for a few days." Farring reached up to unclip the leash from the tethering point. He held the loose end in his hand. "I have a meeting. Can you please take charge of Greg? I believe you have some research papers that need going through? He might be able to help you with those."

He handed the end of the leash to her and she took it reluctantly.

"Shall I take care of replacing the wrapping and stocking on his residual limb?" She asked in a neutral tone, her gaze on her boss. He hesitated but then nodded.

"Yes. I didn't have time to rewrap it after his therapy this morning. They aren’t going to waste money on a prosthesis for him but the stump should still be kept in good shape.”

He turned to Greg.

"I will see you later, Greg. Doctor Morton will bring you to my office when I return. I expect to hear a good report of you behaviour."

Farring had begun to move off when Greg spoke up.

"That patient in there doesn't have lupus."

Farring quickly stopped and turned. Greg had spoken with crisp authority. Morton held her breath, looking between the two men.

"You haven't examined him.” Farring said dismissively. “His symptoms clearly indicate lupus."

Greg shrugged.

"You wouldn't let me in there, but I don’t need to see him to know it's not lupus. It’s probably a neurological infection. I don't know which yet. You could run some tests or I could get my team to take over and do them."

Farring crossed the ground between them in a couple of strides and slapped Greg sharply across the face with such force that his head rocked back.

"The patient has lupus. I do not need the help of a slave and his flunkies to diagnose my patients. I know Doctor Cuddy has shown you a lot of leniency but don't expect the same here. My slaves show me respect at all times."

Farring turned to Morton.

"I'm late for my meeting. I will deal with disciplining him when I get back. If he gives you any trouble, call security."

"Your patient might be dead by then," Greg raised his voice. A bruise was already forming across his cheek but he had his chin up and spoke defiantly.

Farring didn't turn around again. He strode off quickly and entered the elevator.

As soon as he was out of sight Greg spoke up.

"Let me examine the patient.

Morton shook her head.

"No, no way. Farring will have my job if I let you in there against his orders."

"He could die if Farring's diagnosis is wrong, and it is. Isn't that what we're here for - saving lives?"

His crisp words and sure tone were all at odds with the picture before her of a crippled slave, collared and leashed. She still held his leash in her hand.

"Look, I can't - but I will look into the case, see if Doctor Farring has missed anything."

"When the patient deteriorates call my team and ask for a consult. One of them will come and look at her."

Morton peered at the patient in the room behind them and looked back at Greg doubtfully.

"Him. The patient is male."

Greg shrugged.

"Him. Her. Not looking to marry them. Of course you could be looking to bury them if you keep on treating them for lupus."

"You've made your point. Now come on, let's go and get you wrapped up again."

She looked down at the leash and dropped it with distaste so that it fell down his back. Stepping back, she waved a hand for Greg to walk beside her. He gave one last look at the patient's room and then started to move off.

She led him to her office which had an exam table tucked in one corner and Greg got up on the table. Morton's touch was cool and professional and she didn't linger over the task of getting a stocking back on the limb. She touched it as little as possible.

"Farring examined this earlier?"

"Yes." Greg’s answer was clipped and his voice flat. Morton could imagine how that examination had gone. When she looked at him now she no longer saw Doctor House but rather a slave, in a very vulnerable position.

"He has this ... thing ... for amputees. It would be better for you if you weren't here for long."

Greg looked away.

"That isn't exactly up to me."

Morton finished her work and then looked at Greg again. The lines of strain on his face were even more pronounced now.

"Are you on any medication for pain?"

"I get ibuprofen a couple of times a day. Or I'm supposed to – I haven’t had this morning’s dose.”

Morton nodded.

"I'll need to confirm with your doctor and then I'll get them for you. There's no need for you to be in pain."

"Doctor Wilson is looking after it."

Morton was both impressed and puzzled. Why was the head of Oncology prescribing for a slave?

"I'll contact him after I've checked on the patient." She crossed to her computer and brought up some files.

"This is what I've been working on. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts if you could look at it while I do that."

He watched her as she moved towards the door and then spoke up, startling her as she was about to open the door.

"Did he hire you before or after you had your leg amputated?"

She dropped her hand from the door handle and turned to face him.

"How did you know?"

"Takes one to know one. Of course I haven't got one of them fancy peg-legs like you have. You must have a great insurance company, or be deep in debt for that."

She smiled ruefully.

"Deep in debt I'm afraid. Insurance didn't cover half of it."

"So, before or after?"

"After. I didn't know about his ... obsession at the time. When I did find out … well, as I said, I'm deep in debt, I need this job."

 

"You can't do much for him. You can hardly tell you're missing a leg. No wonder he has to turn to slaves to feed his itch. Or do you do special showings of the stump for him?"

She flushed. He lifted his chin up and stared at her with those tired, pained, penetrating blue eyes.

She thought he was going to probe further but he looked away.

"I know about doing what you need to do to survive."

She left him sitting there and went to see about the patient. She would have to be careful how she proceeded with Farring. He was very sensitive to any criticism of his professional abilities and he had the power to fire her whenever he wanted. She didn't think he would. Amputee doctors were hard to find and she knew how much he enjoyed the special evenings they had together. Their evenings together gave her job security, and like she had told Greg, she needed this job. Without it she could end up just like Greg with a collar around her neck.

* * *

Wilson received a phone call in the morning from a doctor in Internal Medicine. She wanted to know about Greg's pain medication, what the dosage was and when he should receive it. Wilson glanced at the clock. It was about five hours past the normal time for the medicine. Greg would be in some pain and hanging out for his dose. Wilson decided to take it there himself.

He made his way to Farring's office, where he'd been told he would find Greg. The door was closed but not locked and he knocked perfunctorily on it before pushing it open. He stopped in the doorway in surprise. Greg was bent over a large desk, shirtless, his pale back exposed. He was gripping the edges of the desk, awkwardly balanced on his one leg. Five vivid red weals crossed his back, each one dotted with spots of blood

Farring was standing behind him with a belt.

He turned when he heard the door open and Wilson saw a flare of irritation on his face. Then it smoothed out and he smiled his usual bland smile.

"Ah, Doctor Wilson. I am nearly finished here. Please come in."

Wilson wavered but then stepped into the office and closed the door behind him. Greg had only been here a few hours. How had he managed to earn himself a beating in that time?

Farring turned back to Greg and Wilson was simultaneously appalled and enraptured with the scene. He felt that he should say something to make Farring stop but this was, after all, common discipline for a slave. Farring had the right to punish any slave in his department, as long as it didn't cause the slave to have to attend the recovery ward and lose work time. Wilson had never had occasion to thrash any of the slaves that worked in Oncology. They were docile and easily led and never gave any trouble. The only slave whippings he'd ever seen were the public ones. As a child he'd snuck in a few times, eyes wide as he watched the slaves jerking under the whip.

Farring brought the belt down across Greg's shoulders with a loud snap. Wilson hadn't expected it to sound so loud. Greg groaned with pain, his back arching, his head hanging down. His arms trembled where he was hanging onto the desk. Wilson drank in the sight of Greg suffering. His pain was like a magnet to Wilson. He wanted to go to him, hold him tight and soothe the pain away. At the same time he wanted to rip the belt out of Farring's hands and never let Greg anywhere near him again. He forced himself to stand still and pasted a disinterested expression on his face.

Apparently that was the last stroke as Farring ordered Greg to straighten up. He did so, obviously in pain. Slowly he released his death grip on the desk and turned around to face them.

"Do you have something to say, Greg?" Farring asked smoothly.

"I'm sorry for disputing your diagnosis, Doctor Farring." Greg said meekly, his eyes flicking over to Wilson and then back to the ground.

"Very well. Please ensure that it doesn't happen again. If you have any input into the treatment of patients here you will approach me in private and respectfully address the issue. I will either agree or disagree with you and that will be the end of it. Do you understand?'

Greg nodded, his eyes still on the ground.

"Very well, put your shirt back on and sit on the floor by the desk while I talk to Doctor Wilson."

Greg stiffly pulled the white t-shirt over his head and then turned his back on them to go and sit by the desk. As he turned Wilson could see droplets of blood forming on the thin material of the t-shirt.

Once Greg was settled on the ground Farring reached down and clipped the end of a leash to a hook in the desk and then onto Greg's collar so that Greg was tethered to the desk.

Farring settled himself in his chair and waved a hand to Wilson to sit in the vistor's chair opposite.

"Doctor Wilson, what can I do for you?"

Wilson tore his eyes away from the sight of Greg sitting leashed to this man's desk.

"I am in charge of Greg's pain medication. He missed his morning dose." Wilson pushed a couple of pills in a blister pack across the desk.

Farring glanced at them but then shook his head.

"He will have to wait until evening now. I can't allow him to have pain medication after he has been disciplined. The whole point of the discipline is to allow the slave to understand the adverse consequences of bad behaviour. If we take away his pain he won't remember the lesson." He dropped the pills into a desk drawer. "I will see to his medication after this. There is no need for you to take time out of your day just to give medicine to a slave. I’m sure you must have more pressing issues."

"He sleeps next to my office. I can administer his evening dose."

Farring shook his head.

"No, while he is working for me he will stay here. The department has a small storage room. He can sleep in there.”

Wilson had thought he would still be seeing Greg in the evenings, now it seemed he wouldn't. He could hardly make a protest though, Greg didn't belong to him and Cuddy had approved these arrangements. 

Farring looked at his watch pointedly, while still smiling politely. Wilson took the hint and rose.

"Very well, thank you for your time, Doctor Farring." He turned towards where Greg was sitting. He wanted to say something to him. To reassure him that it was okay, that he could come back to the fourth floor and diagnostics and Wilson would tag him and protect him. He couldn't make that happen though so he turned away, leaving Greg behind and left the office without saying anything.

* * *

Foreman, Chase and Cameron had decided that their best chance of getting things back to normal was to find a patient for Doctor House as quickly as possible.

Cameron had found an interesting looking rash in the emergency department, Chase had located a man with a fever and abdominal pain and Foreman had tracked down a woman who seemed to believe she was a dog. They presented these cases to Doctor Cuddy who glanced at the files and then laughed.

"A first year medical student could diagnose these. I'm not taking Greg from where he is so he can waste his time on them. Get back to the clinic."

Once outside her office the three looked at each other sheepishly.

"I guess there just aren't any people dying of mysterious illnesses in New Jersey today. Too bad," Chase sighed. "Come on, let’s get those hours knocked off."

Foreman shook his head.

"I'll be down later, I'm going to go and catch up on some charting, maybe sniff around some more."

Foreman was in the diagnostics office when the phone rang. With one eye still on the charts he picked it up.

"Foreman here."

"Hope you're not sitting in my chair."

"Doctor House!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know you all miss me. Get your ass down here to Internal Medicine and bring the others. Got a case for you."

Foreman scowled at the phone. He didn't find it very amusing to be ordered about by a slave, even if he had spent all day trying to find a way to get that slave back.

"What's the case?"

"Some guy they think has lupus. It isn't of course. Got the other one legged doc to have a look at him but she's a moron too."

Foreman raised an eyebrow at the reference to another 'one legged doc' but passed on that for now.

"It's never lupus."

"Yeah, that's why you need to get down here so we can find out what it is. And Foreman?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't mention my name. Tell them you found him from reviewing patient files."

Foreman focused on House’s voice rather than his words. He sounded tired and pained. The bantering was only a front.

"Are you okay?"

There was a pause and then a quiet voice.

"Yeah. I'm fine, and I'd like to stay that way."

"Okay, we'll come down."

Foreman sent out a page to the other fellows and then slipped on his lab coat. Whatever House was up to it sounded like he was playing a dangerous game. Foreman thought again about that day when they had come across House and Farring. He remembered the hungry look on Farring's face as he stared at House.

Foreman decided to tread very carefully when they saw this patient that House had found.

* * *

There was really no way of disguising the fact that House had called his team in on the case. Farring returned from a late lunch to find Carla Morton and three doctors he didn't know standing outside the patient's room, charts in hand and arguing in low but passionate tones. He'd left Greg sitting, tied to the desk, in his office while he went to lunch and after the trio introduced themselves as the diagnostics team he sent a passing intern to get the slave.

The intern came back with Greg in tow, holding the leash tightly in his hand while Greg made his slow way towards them on his crutches. Greg was trying to look meek and mild but Farring wasn't buying it.

"Greg, did you call these doctors to come look at this patient?"

Greg flicked a quick glance at the three junior doctors, who seemed to be trying their best not to stare at their boss being walked on the end of a leash.

"No, they often roam the halls looking for random patients."

Farring stiffened, staring at the slave, his hand raised.

"Answer my questions respectfully or I'll give you another session with the belt right here."

Cameron gasped, making a small movement towards Greg but Farring ignored her, his eyes locked on Greg.

"Now, did you call these doctors to come and examine this patient, against my direct orders?"

Greg raised his eyes, and answered in a very quiet voice.

"Yes. He doesn't have lupus."

A nurse came running out of the patient room, looking between all the doctors with confusion. She focused on Farring.

"You need to come. The patient is seizing, and he's vomiting blood."

The three fellows, Morton and Farring ran into the room.

Greg stayed outside, smiling to himself. He looked up at the young intern holding the leash.

"Just like I said, it’s not lupus."


	8. Chapter 8

Cuddy was sitting in her office working on some budget proposals when she received a call from Doctor Morton asking her to please come to the Internal Medicine Department as soon as possible to resolve a problem. Greg. It had to be Greg, she thought. The slave had only been there one day and was already causing problems. On her way there she gathered two security guards in case she needed them. One could never tell with Greg.

As she came off the escalators she spied the knot of doctors standing around outside a patient's room by the nursing station. Chase, Cameron and Foreman were all there, as were Farring and a woman she vaguely recognised as Morton. Greg was there too, of course, balanced on his crutches, leashed and with a young intern holding the leash. She cast a quick glance over at the slave. He looked tired, worn down and he held himself as if he was in pain, but he had a sly grin on his face. Farring looked furious and the other doctor's expressions held varying degrees of apprehension. Obviously some sort of stand-off was in progress. She waded in.

"Doctor Farring, I received a call that you required my help."

Farring turned to her, that smooth practised smile on his face. Seriously the man gave her the creeps. She felt a, very small, twinge of sympathy for Greg.

"It’s merely a difference of opinion over patient care. These doctors," he waved a hand at the three diagnostics fellows "are of the opinion that my patient is in need of their care but we have the matter well in hand here. Their consultation is not necessary."

"You thought the poor schmuck had lupus," Greg interjected, raising one of his crutches to point at the patient’s room. The security guards Cuddy had brought with her rushed forward and seized his arms, snatching the crutches away. He briefly tried to pull away and then subsided as they tightened their grips on his arms, his face creasing in pain.

"It was just a dramatic gesture for God’s sake. I wasn't going to hit her with my crutches," Greg said with exasperation.

One of the guards cuffed him on the back of the head.

"Shut up slave. If they want to hear from you they'll let you know."

Cuddy carried on as if without interruption.

"I gather the patient doesn’t have lupus then?"

"He's just had a seizure, is vomiting blood and his kidneys are shutting down. No, it's not lupus." Foreman said with a deadpan expression. "We requested that he be transferred to diagnostics and that Doctor House be released back to diagnostics so that we can work the case."

"Doctor Farring, do you know what is wrong with the patient?" Cuddy asked.

Farring hesitated but then shook his head.

"We haven't had time to fully investigate yet. These new symptoms just appeared."

"Then I suggest you turn the patient over to the diagnostics team. That is, after all, why the hospital has a diagnostics department. It would be foolish to take up the time of your staff with this when these three doctors have no patient at the moment."

"Great, wrap the patient up and we'll take him upstairs." Greg said brightly, and then gasped as one of the guards did something to his arm that Cuddy couldn't quite make out.

She smiled at Greg.

"Your enthusiasm is commendable, Greg but there is no need to move the patient, or for you to return to diagnostics. I am sure Doctor Farring will find you a room you can use here, and your team may consult with you. When you aren’t needed you will continue to serve Doctor Farring as has been previously agreed."

Greg opened his mouth to protest but then glanced at the guards and for once seemed to decide that discretion was the better part of valour and stayed silent.

"That's not how we work." The protest came from Cameron which surprised Cuddy. The fellow was casting worried glances at Greg.

"My decision is final, Doctor Cameron. I am sure that your diagnosis will proceed as normal on a different floor of the hospital. If that arrangement is acceptable to you of course, Doctor Farring?"

Farring smiled at her, looking pleased. 

"Yes, quite acceptable. Greg will have to be closely supervised of course so nothing untoward happens. Doctor Morton has been taking care of him today. She will continue to do so."

Cuddy nodded.

"Very well, then if you have no further need of me I will return to my work."

* * *

Farring waited until Cuddy had gone into the elevator and turned to the security guards who were holding Greg.

"Take him to the conference room at the end of the hallway. I will be there shortly.”

The guards hauled Greg away, none too gently.

Farring turned to the fellows.

"You can come too. I am sorry the slave dragged you here and away from your work for no reason. His behaviour is not acceptable and I will be making sure he knows that."

Foreman looked into the patient’s room but there was no change on the monitors. The patient was stable for the moment. He glanced at Chase and Cameron and shrugged. He wasn’t sure what Farring had in mind, but Farring was a senior doctor and Cuddy had assigned them to this case so he’d play along for now. He gathered up Chase and Cameron with a look and they made their way to the conference room. Doctor Morton trailed after them reluctantly.

A long table dominated the room and at a nod from Farring the guards half carried Greg over to it, stripped his shirt off and forced him down so his torso was leaning on the table. Greg's pale back was exposed to the room.

The fellows all stared at his back. There were six livid red welts crossing it each one spotted with dried blood. They could see the overlay of old scars there, whip marks crossing his back from every direction.

Farring turned to the three fellows.

"I had occasion to discipline Greg earlier as you can see. Unfortunately he hasn't yet learned his lesson. He did not have permission to call you all in for a consult. I want you to understand what the consequences are for him if he misbehaves again."

Farring turned to a locked cabinet in one corner of the room and opened it, extracting a slave flogger. He went to stand behind Greg.

Without further speech he proceeded to flog the slave, each blow of the tails against Greg's back caused him to gasp and moan. He tried to shift away from the source of the pain but the guards held his arms in place. Farring aimed for the existing marks and soon many other red weals sprang up on Greg's back. He was quick with each blow, barely pausing for breath. It was obvious to those watching that he had plenty of experience at this.

After only a few blows there was a strangled cry and Chase rushed out the room. Farring barely paused in his work. He kept the blows raining down on Greg's back. 

To the onlookers it seemed like an eternity but eventually Farring stopped and stared at Greg's back, appearing to assess the damage. He couldn't do anything that would necessitate a stay for Greg in the recovery ward. After a brief pause he nodded, apparently satisfied at what he had done. Greg's back was now completely covered with weals, most had not broken the skin but together they painted his back red. Greg's head was hanging down low and he was slumped over the table, his leg trembling and his body shaking. There was a fine sheen of sweat all over his body and his hair was damp against his head.

Farring raised Greg's head by taking a handful of his hair and pulling. He stared into the slave's bloodshot eyes and then let his head drop again. He caressed Greg's back, running his hand along the weals before seeming to remember that he had an audience.

Straightening up he looked around the room. The chairs around the conference table were plush, padded ones. Around the corners of the wall were a few more basic ones. Farring gestured to one of those and ordered the guard to bring it up to the table.

"Put Greg in that."

The guards pulled Greg up from his bent over position and he straightened with a hiss and a gasp of pain. They dragged him to the hard chair and dropped him into it. His back made contact with the back of the chair and he flinched and jumped. A guard placed a hand on his shoulder, holding him down.

Farring went back to the cabinet, replaced the flogger and brought out a pair of heavy leg irons. He gave one to the guard.

"Lock his ankle to the leg of the chair."

The guard complied, running a chain length up the chair and underneath the cross bar to hold it in place.

"Greg is to stay in that chair until the patient is diagnosed. If he needs the bathroom one of you will take him and stay with him while he uses it. Then you will shackle him again. You may bring him food and drink if you like."

"Sometimes our cases take days," Cameron protested.

"Then it will be in Greg's best interest if you proceed swiftly. I am sure this case won't be much of a challenge to him – he seems confident."

Farring went over to Greg, crouching down and placing a hand on his stump, lightly squeezing it.

"You are not in charge here, Greg. Doctor Morton will lead the team and your fellows will answer to her. If you show her, or your fellows, any lack of respect they will report it to me and we will have another session. Do you understand?" Farring tightened his grip and Greg squirmed.

"Yes." Greg said in his small, whipped slave, voice.

"Very well." Farring picked up Greg's t-shirt and threw it in the trash can. "You won't be seeing the patient so you won't need that."

He thanked the security guards for their time and left the room.

* * *

After Farring and the security guards had departed a silence descended on the room. Greg sat hunched over, his body drawn in. He was perched on the edge of the chair, his body trembling in shock. Farring's actions had been so quick and decisive that the others in the room were struggling to catch up and process what they had seen. None of them had witnessed such severe disciplinary action before. Such a session was normally done behind closed doors.

Foreman shook himself and moved over to Greg.

"Bend forward, Greg. Let me have a look."

Greg was still trembling and didn't respond, Foreman gently pushed his shoulders forward and down so that he could examine the tortured back. He rang an eye over the wounds, noting that any bleeding that had occurred had stopped.

"It looks okay." It wasn't okay, not really. Greg's back was a vivid red mess and looked very painful. But it didn't need any real treatment, besides time. He looked at Morton and Cameron, at a loss at what to say or do.

"Foreman, go and get the patient history and talk to the family if there is one. Cameron, go and find bondage boy and start redoing the tests."

House's voice was croaky, tired, but held his usual arrogant authority. He raised his head and stared at them.

"Or not. We can just let the patient die if you like. I'm easy."

"How can you ... after you've just been ..." Cameron stammered.

"Mouth moves, words come out."

"But ... "

"Just go and do your job Cameron." House said wearily his eyes closing.

Foreman urged Cameron towards the door and they went out with Cameron casting backwards glances at him all the time.

* * *

"You'd rather they hate you than pity you?"

Morton had stayed behind and now she sat down in the chair next to Greg. The nice plush comfortable chair.

Greg opened his eyes and stared at her.

"You set me up."

"I ..."

"You left me alone in your office with the patient's file and a phone. You knew what I would do. That I would make the call you were too chicken to make."

Morton flushed as she looked at him. House was a slave, half naked, with a collar around his neck and lash marks on his back. He was manacled to a chair. He had made the right choice for the patient, something she had not brought herself to do.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

He lifted one shoulder slightly in a shrug. "I didn’t need to make the call."

“Yes, you did."

He didn’t say anything. She knew there was nothing to say. He’d known what he was doing when he called Foreman, and he’d accepted the likely consequences. 

"I will stay with you, while you work the case. I’ll make sure that you’re cared for." 

"There’s no significant other waiting at home? No kiddies wanting their mummy?"

She took a moment to compose herself. It had been years but the pain never stopped.

"They're dead. Car accident. My husband was driving and my son was in the back seat. I was lucky. I only lost my leg."

She stared into the distance, feeling compelled to be honest with this man. This slave who had so little, but who was willing to risk everything.

"My husband was at fault and there were insurance issues. Everything we had went on bills. I had to sell everything. When I got out of rehab my old job didn't exist anymore and other hospitals weren’t eager to take on a one legged doctor with ongoing therapy needs. I was a week away from bankruptcy when I found this position. I'm always only a week's pay from bankruptcy. If I lose this job …"

"The debt collectors move in and you get a delightful fashion accessory." He lightly touched the collar around his own neck and she shuddered as she looked at it.

"I can't risk that. Not for anything ."

He nodded. He shifted restlessly in the chair. He couldn't lean against the back of the chair because of the marks on his back but he was obviously desperately tired, and in pain. Morton suspected that he wanted nothing more than to lie down somewhere and drift off to sleep to let his tired body and mind rest.

"Did Doctor Wilson bring your medication?"

He barked out a tired laugh.

"Yes, but our Lord and Master took it away. No pain medication after a whipping."

"I think the patient might have cancer," she announced abruptly.

Greg raised his eyebrow. The patient might have a lot of things, but cancer was so low on the list as to be almost invisible.

"We should call Doctor Wilson for a consult," Morton continued, her eyes on Greg, willing him to understand. Wilson had apparently been nominated as his physician, as unlikely as it seemed. He had come personally to the first floor before to give some ibuprofen to a slave. Clearly there was more going on between the men than a simple professional relationship. She thought Greg would benefit from a visit by Wilson now.

"Farring might object."

"He'll be gone by now. He doesn't stay late much. His wife doesn’t like it when he’s late coming home." Except for the nights when he pled a medical emergency and took Morton to a hotel room to indulge his obsession. There had been many of _those_ nights but as far as she knew Farring's wife remained blissfully unaware.

"Anyway, he said for you to work the case. That's what you'll be doing. If Doctor Wilson will come that is. He might be gone for the night as well."

Greg smiled a crooked smile at her.

"Oh, he'll come. Just tell him I'm in pain. He'll come for that."

* * *

Cameron was protesting to Foreman even as they left the conference room.

"We shouldn't have had to watch that! I'm going to complain to Cuddy!"

Foreman rolled his eyes at Cameron's shrillness. He too was sickened by what they had witnessed. It had been violent and brutal. Greg annoyed him sometimes - a lot of the time really - but he didn't deserve that. The man had already been beaten once today, on top of the fact that he was still recovering from a leg amputation. He knew though that complaining to Cuddy was going to achieve exactly zero. She wasn't stupid, and she knew just about everything that went on in the hospital. She knew what Farring was. By having Greg work in his department she knew what type of treatment he would receive. She must be okay with it for reasons of her own. Her sensibilities were hardly going to be offended by three junior doctors witnessing a disciplinary session with a slave.

"So you're annoyed that you had to watch it? Not that Greg was flogged and then chained to a chair because he tried to do his job and save a patient's life?"

Cameron was flustered.

"Of course I'm annoyed about that as well! Doctor House shouldn't be treated like that. It was awful."

They were interrupted by Chase emerging from the bathroom, wiping his mouth. His complexion was pale and drawn and there was a suspicious redness to his eyes.

"Sorry, I just couldn't watch that."

"I thought you were the one with all the experience with people who like pain? I wouldn't have thought that a little flogging would rattle you?"

Chase glared at him.

"The person I was with _liked_ the pain. Doctor House doesn't. That makes a hell of a difference."

"But …"

"Look, just drop it okay. Let's get this patient diagnosed and get the hell off this floor. Farring is a total nutcase." Chase held out his hand for the file. "What does House want us to do?"

* * *

Wilson was met by Morton at the elevator doors. He was carrying a small bag, containing what he needed to tend to Greg.

"Doctor Wilson, thank you for agreeing to consult on this case," Morton said loudly. Wilson was confused for a moment and then noticed the people passing up and down the corridor. Hospital politics was one area he was proficient in. 

"My pleasure, Doctor Morton. Doctor House's cases are always interesting."

"He's in the conference room." She led him there and paused at the door. "I am going to get something to eat. I'll be back in half an hour."

"Thank you for calling me in, Doctor Morton. Enjoy your dinner.”

After she’d left he pushed open the door to find Greg sitting perched on the edge of an uncomfortable looking chair pulled up to a large wooden table. He was bare to the waist and Wilson could see the redness of his back, now far worse than the six stripe marks he'd seen earlier.

Greg looked up as he entered. His eyes locked onto the bag Wilson was carrying. Wilson carefully set it at one end of the table and approached Greg. As he got closer he could see he was manacled to the leg of the chair.

'You requested a consult?"

Greg barked out his harsh laugh.

"Yeah." He took the file that was sitting in front of him and slid it across the table to Wilson.

Wilson quickly flicked through it and then adopted a serious expression.

"I don't believe the patient has cancer, Doctor House."

He shut the file and returned it to the table. Laying a hand on Greg's shoulder he bent him over slightly so he could see his back better. He felt the stiff resistance in Greg's muscles and gently kneaded one tense shoulder.

"Easy Greg, I'm not going to hurt you. Hmm, looks like it's superficial. Bet it stings though. You've had nothing all day?"

Greg shook his head. His eyes went again to Wilson's bag.

"I've brought you something to eat and drink. Have that and then I'll give you your pills."

Going over to the bag he extracted a container of takeout food and a bottle of water.

"Just from the canteen I'm afraid. I didn't have time to get you anything better." He placed the food in front of Greg and extracted some plastic utensils from the bag.

Greg was usually hesitant to eat the food Wilson provided. Most of the time he ate it grudgingly. Today though he pulled the container close and began shovelling food into his mouth at a rapid rate. Wilson wondered if he'd anything at all to eat today. Of course it was possible he was just in a hurry to get at the painkillers Wilson had in the bag, mild as they were.

Once Greg had eaten his fill and drank most of the bottle of water Wilson extracted two pill bottles from the bag. One of them was the usual ibuprofen and he handed over two pills to Greg who gulped them down gratefully. The other pill bottle he held out to show Greg.

"Oxycontin. I think you need something stronger today. I can give it to you but you know the risks if they pick it up in a random drug test. I don't think they'll do them while you're here, but there's no guarantee."

Greg held out his hand immediately.

"Don't care. Give it to me."

"I'm taking a risk too, you know that."

"If they catch me I'll stay I stole it from one of the offices here. Cuddy will believe that." Greg's voice was edged with desperation. He must really be hurting, or maybe he just really wanted the drug. Wilson held onto the bottle, twirling it between his fingers. Greg's eyes locked onto it.

"Please, Doctor Wilson." That was Greg's well-trained slave voice, mild and respectful, the voice he rarely used.

"Just the one." Wilson extracted one pill and dropped it in Greg's palm. Before he had even put the bottle away Greg had swallowed the pill and had his eyes closed in blissful anticipation for the pain relief that was to come.

Wilson took the opportunity to extract some medical supplies from his bag and gently cleanse the wounds on Greg's back. Greg moaned as he touched the welts but made no other protest as Wilson wiped them over with an antiseptic lotion. Wilson let his hands linger at their task, feeling the tight muscles relax slightly as the drugs took hold.

For one brief moment he felt Greg lean back against him, as if seeking the comfort he was providing. He wondered how long it had been since someone had held Greg to comfort him. Since he had felt a friendly touch rather than a harsh brutal one. Probably not since Stacy had torn her tag off and left him.

"I could protect you from this you know. If I had you tagged I'd have some influence to get you out of here and back where you belong. I'd tell Farring to stay the hell away from you. I could make sure you get better pain medication and better treatment at PT. I'd bring you food and drink. I'd look after you and make sure you're well cared for. Wouldn't that be better than this?"

"You'd own me." Greg said in his small voice.

"You’re a slave. Someone is always going to own you, Greg. Wouldn't it be better if it was me? Someone who cares about you? Look at what I've done for you tonight and tell me I don't care about you."

Greg swallowed hard and turned away.

Wilson sighed. Greg was such a stubborn slave. He'd leave it there and let Greg think about it.

He packed up the bag and went to the door, glancing back when he got there. Greg shifted nervously in the chair and cleared his throat. Wilson waited.

"Thanks," Greg muttered. "For the food and the pills."

Wilson smiled at him.

"You're welcome Greg. Try to get through this, I'll come back and check on you when I can."

"Okay."

Wilson left, nodding at Doctor Morton as he passed her in the corridor. He was getting through to Greg. Slowly the man was beginning to trust him. Another few days in this department and he would clearly see that Wilson was the best alternative.

He believed that Greg would one day come to him and ask to be tagged. He indulged for a brief moment in a fantasy of Greg kneeling at his feet, and himself clipping the shiny tag onto Greg's collar while Greg stared up at him with adoring eyes. He could hardly wait for that day to arrive.


	9. Chapter 9

Foreman found dealing with the family of their patient frustrating. First, he'd had to track them down. They were sitting outside the hospital, in a small courtyard. Not doing anything in particular it seemed, just watching the entrance of the hospital. It wasn't unusual for the family of a patient to find the atmosphere of the hospital a bit overwhelming and rush outside but they seemed to have been sitting there for some time.

They were an older couple, the man's parents. They answered his questions slowly, hesitating over each answer as if they needed to consider what their response should be. No, the patient hadn't been overseas lately, or even to Florida, hadn't been working with lead based products, toxins, rats or other animals. No, he wasn't taking any medication and he wasn't doing drugs. No, he had no history of seizures, or anything more serious than a cold.

The patient, Stephen, worked with his father in a metal working business, having recently relocated from California. When Foreman asked why they had moved the father had asked him why that was relevant.

As they talked Foreman noticed that the man's father was continually looking around and staring at the people entering the hospital and those leaving. With a frustrated sigh he asked them if they would like to go back inside and support their son since he had regained consciousness. To his surprise they both declined.

He left them both sitting there and went to take a more detailed patient history from Stephen. He was not surprised when the patient himself was no more forthcoming. Stephen seemed reluctant to talk about himself at all.

Foreman had no doubt that all three of them were hiding something, thereby proving House's adage that everybody lies.

* * *

Greg was looking a little better when Morton returned to the conference room. The edge of desperation that had been in his face before had gone and he was quietly reading through the patient's file and making notes as he went. The room smelled faintly of food so she supposed Wilson had brought dinner up as well as medication. Greg's back looked to have been treated with something, and although he was by no means sitting comfortably he looked slightly less hunched.

"So it wasn't cancer then?" she quipped, earning her a startled look from House and a small smile.

"Apparently not. Just leaves a thousand other conditions on the list. Hopefully he won't die before they get some test results for me."

"You've had a rough day. How's the leg feeling?"

"Well, it's chained to a chair … oh, you mean this lovely stump?"

"Your residual limb if you don't mind." She grinned. "They don't like you calling it a stump in therapy."

He shrugged.

"Useless piece of flesh is what my therapist called it."

She started to laugh, thinking he was joking, and then realised he wasn't.

"Why would she say something like that?" she asked, appalled.

"Well, she had me bent over a chair and was caning my ass at the time so I wasn't about to ask too many questions."

"She was caning ...”

Greg looked at her, puzzlement on his face.

"She was hitting you ...”

"Well that's what it felt like, could be wrong I guess ...”

"What sort of therapist would hit a patient?"

Greg barked out a short laugh.

"I'm not a patient. I'm just a piece of equipment. I'm the broken down MRI machine she has to fix so she does it anyway she can. Pain is a great motivator."

She pulled out a chair at the table and dropped into it. She didn't know much about how slaves lived their lives. She knew the basics of course, she knew about collars, and whippings and things like that. She saw slaves around the hospital and had worked with a few. They seemed fairly simple people for the most part, easily pleased with a few kind words and fairly content with their lot in life. She'd never heard any of them complain about anything.

Of course she'd _seen_ House getting flogged, just that day. It had made her very uncomfortable, seeing that, knowing that she had helped set up the situation that made Farring do it. But a disciplinary flogging by a supervisor for a disobedient slave was different to a therapist hitting a patient.

"That’s appalling. They shouldn’t do that."

"It's okay. I'd just puked on her so we were even." Greg grinned, but there wasn't much humour in his voice.

Morton looked down at her own leg. Her amputation wasn't as high as House's being just below the knee. A below the knee amputation was considered much less of a handicap than an above the knee one. Still, she'd had plenty of support in the hospital, therapists, counsellors and access to all the latest prosthetic equipment. Even so she'd struggled with the loss, compounded by the loss of her husband and child at the same time. It had taken over a year to reach an even moderate level of acceptance of the loss of a part of her body.

Greg had been an amputee for less than a month. Any assistance he'd received in that time had apparently been abusive.

She looked at him again and saw the way his jeans had been cut off by Farring to reveal the stump. His fingers played at the end of the jeans leg, trying to bring it down to cover it but failing.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"You're sorry for what?"

"For your loss." She nodded at his stump and he put his hand down to cover it. "I'm sorry that no-one is helping you recover from that. That you're having to endure all this..." she waved a hand to indicate the chair, the chains holding him to it and the marks on his back. "You're a doctor. You don't deserve to be treated like an animal, or a piece of machinery."

He swallowed hard and she saw a glisten of moisture in his eyes. Then he laughed harshly.

"Nobody deserves to be treated like this."

* * *

The fellows returned to the room after a quick dinner, armed with as many lab reports as they could get at that time of night. They found House dozing in his chair, his chest leaning forward on the table. Morton was working on her laptop and she raised a finger to her lips as they entered.

"He's just dropped off to sleep, don’t wake him. He's exhausted."

Foreman was surprised by the protectiveness in her voice. She'd only known House for less than a day and the usual reaction to House was not one of instant sympathy.

"Well, we need to go over these results with him. The patient is deteriorating rapidly."

"Gimme." Greg held out a hand for the results although his head didn’t come up from the table. "Took you long enough."

"Well at least we've been doing something productive, not just sleeping."

"Yeah, yeah, I have all the fun. Meanwhile you've got food all down your lab coat so I'd say you've been stuffing your faces in that cafeteria while not-lupus guy has been dying down the corridor."

Foreman looked down at the couple of spots on his otherwise immaculate labcoat and scowled. House should watch his mouth. This wasn't his office and he sure as hell wasn't in charge here.

"What'd you get from the patient? Been sleeping with sheep or anything useful like that?"

Foreman grimaced in disgust at House's crudeness.

"Patient and his family are hiding something. I could hardly get anything out of them."

"Must be that incredible Foreman charm. Next time I'll send Cameron. She'll bat her eyelashes at them and look gooey and they'll spill their guts."

Yeah, House should definitely watch his mouth.

Just as Foreman was fantasizing about what he could do to House to make him keep a civil tongue in his head three pagers went off and the fellows all read the message.

"Damn! Patient is coding!"

"Great, new symptom. Go keep him alive and then come back and we'll do a differential. Hope you guys haven't got plans for tonight because I'm not going anywhere."

The three fellows ran out of the room.

* * *

By three in the morning the patient was stabilised again and had been started on a course of treatment. According to Greg that would either cure him or make him sicker within 24 hours. Either way nothing was going to happen for a few hours so he dismissed the fellows and they gratefully left to go home and get a few hours sleep.

Morton dimmed the light down and collapsed on the couch in the corner of the conference room. She'd loosened Greg's chain enough that he could lie down over a couple of the chairs, that was about all she could do for him.

She was almost asleep when she was startled by Greg's quiet voice.

"What was it like, when you lost your leg?"

She lay quietly in the dark and thought about it. The loss of her husband and child had overshadowed the loss of her limb but that grief was still there.

"I don't remember anything about the crash itself. All I remember is waking up in the car. There were rescue workers all around me. A paramedic was working on me. He told me that I had to be brave as they needed to take me leg off just below the knee to get me out of the car. He told me it was crushed beyond saving anyway. So I said okay, and then he did it. I think I fainted from the pain. The next thing I knew I was waking up in the hospital. I looked down, and there was nothing there below the knee, but I could still feel it."

There was silence except for his quiet breathing.

"Greg? What about you?"

"They knocked me out. When I woke up they'd taken my leg off. They said they did it so I wouldn't be in pain anymore."

She was silent. That was a poor reason to amputate anyone's leg, especially without their knowledge or consent. Greg was a slave though, according to the law he had no consent to give.

There was a silence and she thought he'd finished talking. There was nothing she could say to make what had happened to him better.

"Do you ... do you miss your leg, Morton?"

She looked down at the prosthetic she'd taken off before lying down to sleep.

"Yes, I do, Greg. Every day."

"Yeah, me too."

She waited but he didn’t say anything else.

* * *

It was difficult to impossible to sleep on a couple of hard chairs with no blankets or pillows, and a need to keep his back from touching the hard surface of the chairs. Greg drifted in and out but never truly reached a deep sleep. He dreamed, as he often did, of hands around his throat, squeezing, the pressure never letting up. When he woke his hands went instinctively to his collar. He'd worn it for over a decade now but had never gotten used to its presence.

Suddenly he felt everything begin to fall into place, some of the anomalies in the file made sense and he had that moment of clarity where he knew, _really knew_ what was wrong with their patient.

He just needed to go and have a look at the man to confirm it. He looked over at Morton, she was deeply asleep. If he was quiet enough she wouldn't wake up. He had a lot of experience at being quiet and unnoticed by free people. 

The key to the shackle on his ankle was on the table. It had been left there after his last bathroom break. He snatched it up and quickly unlocked himself from the chain.

He stood up, stretching himself and reached for his crutches. He paused for a moment to grab his t-shirt back out of the trash can where Farring had thrown it and slipped it on. It was stained with blood and it wouldn't conceal his collar but that wouldn't matter.

He made his way as quietly as he could out of the room and towards the patient's room. There was only a nurse on duty at this time of night and she was in one of the other rooms. He slipped into the room where Not-Lupus guy was, unnoticed.

The patient, Stephen, looked up at him as he entered. The guy looked half dead, his eyes sunken, and his breath rasping. 

"Hi, don't mind me," Greg made his way over to him, placing his hands around his throat and feeling the skin. The guy’s eyes went wide with fear and the monitors showed his heart rate picking up rapidly. He took his hands away and nodded in satisfaction.

"Hey! Who are you?" His patient was flinching away from him, but making no move to call for help. Interesting. 

"I'm your doctor." Greg glanced at the door but nobody was coming. 

"You're a slave!"

"Takes one to know one," Greg said casually.

Stephen stared at him in terror, his mouth hanging open. Greg indicated his own throat with his hands.

"You've done a good job at concealing it but the skin is rough where your collar was. Human skin isn't really meant to have a metal collar placed around it for years at a time. Now, of course you could have been freed by someone - I've heard that happens sometimes - but you would have disclosed that on your history, there’s no reason to hide it from your doctors."

Greg went over to the IV which was still dripping its useless medicine into Stephen's body and inspected it.

"Well, this hasn't killed you yet so it's probably safe to leave it in."

"They told me the medicine would cure me."

"Well, that or kill you, we weren't sure which. They were wrong anyway. You're suffering from escaped slave syndrome."

"I've never heard of that ...”

"Not surprising. I just made it up. Your previous owner, whoever they were, was feeding you a drug called Ronixymin. It's experimental and not approved for use on actual people, but they're running trials on slaves. Your owner was getting paid for each dose he gave you. Was he taking you to the doctor regularly?"

"Every week. I was labouring on a building site. I used to get … lent out ... a lot. He told me he wanted to make sure I wasn't diseased."

"The doctor was monitoring your blood to see what adverse effects, if any, there was of the drug. The trials have been running a while; mostly without harm to the slaves. One thing they have found though is that once you've been taking it for a while it leaves a residual in your system for a long time. It tends to interact with drugs such as acetaminophen, which you might take for a headache, and cause symptoms such as seizures, heart palpitations and hallucinations. Any of this sounding familiar?"

"So, what do I do?"

"Don't take any more headache pills for a while. The symptoms don't last long - slaves that survived the first onslaught with medical attention usually made a full recovery. Now that it's a known side effect slaves aren't given any other medication while they're on the Ronixymin or for about three months afterwards. Of course if you're a naughty slave and run off ... well, that's your own fault isn't it?"

"So, I'll be okay?"

“If you can get out of here without anyone suspecting and you keep quiet for a few days you'll be fine."

"You won't tell them?"

Greg shrugged.

"It’s none of my business. I assume you know what they do to escaped slaves, and anyone who helps them."

Stephen lowered his eyes to the bed.

"I know. They know. I ran away on an impulse. I just couldn't take it anymore."

"I said t's not my business. I don't want to know. The less I know the better."

Greg turned to go.

"You'll get better. They'll think the diagnosis from yesterday was correct. You should be here for another couple of days. Just keep your mouth shut and tell your parents to get lost."

Greg peered out the door and stiffened.

"Damn."

"What is it?" Stephen stared at the door, wide eyed. "Is someone coming for me?"

"Not for you. Just play along and act outraged." He stepped away from the patient and stood passively, his body relaxed and his head down.

The door opened and a nurse came in. She was followed by two large security guards who came straight over to Greg and grabbed his crutches so that he fell to the floor. They hauled him up, into a rough kneeling position and cuffed his hands behind his back. He was unable to keep his balance like that so they both grabbed a shoulder and held him upright.

The nurse bustled over to Stephen.

"Are you okay, sir?”

Stephen stared at Greg and spoke angrily.

"That slave came in and said he was a doctor."

"He _is_ a doctor. He's been assigned to your case but he's not supposed to come in here." The nurse answered, checking out the monitor and leads. "I'm sorry; he must have come in when I was in another room. I called security as soon as I realised he was in here."

Greg knelt quietly, eyes down, subdued in the hands of the guards. He didn’t look up to meet Stephen’s eyes. 

One of the guards addressed the nurse.

"Is the patient okay?"

"Yes, he seems much improved actually, the medication must be working."

"That's what happens when you treat the patient for the _right thing_ instead of lupus." House stiffened as one of the guards gripped his shoulder tighter. The other guard deliberately leaned into the lash marks on his back.

"I've paged Doctor Morton. She is Mr Quade's real doctor,” the guard said to the nurse. “We’ll keep this piece of shit here until she comes. She'll know what to do."

* * *

When Morton came into the room she was greeted by the sight of Greg kneeling on the floor. He was listing to one side with his hands shackled behind his back. Two large guards were gripping his shoulders tightly, as if he was likely to jump up and hop away.

The patient was staring at the guards and Greg with wide eyes and the nurse was hovering uncertainly.

One of the guards addressed her.

"Greg was supposed to stay chained to a chair in the conference room. Do you know how he got free?"

She thought quickly. She'd only woken up when she was paged and had been startled to find Greg gone. They key to his leg iron was sitting on the table. He must have unlocked it himself. A slave taking off a shackle was considered an escape attempt and the penalty for that began with 300 lashes. They were spread out over a few days so there was every chance of the slave living, and being in as much pain as possible.

"I released him to go the bathroom, about half an hour ago. I asked him to check on the patient while he was up and see how he was doing."

Greg's head came up sharply. His blue eyes bored into her, surprise clearly written in them. 

"The patient is doing fine, as you can see. Our diagnosis was correct. Sorry I didn't come straight back, I was detained." With a backwards shrug of his shoulders he indicated the guards behind him and again they tightened their grip.

Morton went over to the patient and checked. The man still looked like death warmed over, but he was much improved from even a few hours ago.

"Take Greg back to the conference room and put the shackle back on his ankle."

"Yes Ma'am."

The two burly guards hauled Greg upright and they went off half carrying him, with him doing an odd little hop on one leg to try and move under his own power.

Morton turned back to the patient who was trembling and looked extremely agitated by this turn of events.

"I'm sorry, Mr Quade. I should have checked on you myself. I hope Greg didn't disturb you."

"I guess it's okay. He didn't do anything to me. So I'm okay now?"

"We'll keep monitoring you, but it looks like out diagnosis was right."

"Thank you."

Thank Greg, she wanted to say, but held her tongue. Greg was only a slave. No-one was ever going to thank him. She moved towards the door, nodding at the nurse who had called her in.

"Please let me know if there is any change in his condition."

* * *

Greg was sitting back on his chair and the guards were gone by the time she made it back to the conference room. She noticed that the shackle was tighter around his ankle now, and the key was well out of his reach.

He looked up at her as she came in.

"Why?"

"Why did I save you from getting whipped half to death? You're an idiot, what the hell were you thinking?"

Greg grinned at her, baring all his teeth.

"Like you said, I just wanted to check on the patient. You were sleeping and I didn't want to wake you. No harm done."

"No harm done! Just what do you think Doctor Farring is going to say? His instructions were that you be escorted to the bathroom, and you were not to see the patient. Now I've admitted I've gone against him on both points. I told you. I can't afford to lose this job."

"He's not going to fire you, not over something like this. It's not like amputee doctors grow on trees." He looked thoughtful. “Although you wouldn’t think that, going be present company.”

She kept glaring at him but she turned as the door opened and the three fellows trooped in, ready to start back in on the case.

"Case is over kiddies, run along." Greg said in an artificially bright tone of voice. 

"He's dead?" Chase asked.

"How little faith you have. The patient is cured of course. Chalk another victory up to Doctor House. What was it you said Cameron? Sarcoidosis? Wrong again."

"The diagnosis was correct?" Foreman looked doubtful.

"No, it was wrong and the patient just miraculously got better," Greg snapped.

"But..." Chase started up.

"I've never seen doctors so unwilling to believe they cured a patient. Pack it up and get out of here before you become part of the furniture. Enjoy doing my clinic hours."

* * *

Greg spent the rest of the day in the conference room. Morton was called away on rounds, the fellows returned to the fourth floor and Farring didn't put in an appearance. A guard came a couple of times to escort him to the bathroom and then back to the room. He protested this treatment to the guard who just told him to shut up and behave himself, Farring would no doubt send him for him when he was ready.

Greg grew more apprehensive as the day wore on. He had been expecting either to be sent back to diagnostics or to be put to work somewhere on this floor, not this silence. He was getting incredibly tired of sitting in the hard chair.

Finally the door opened and two guards with a wheelchair entered. They grabbed him and dumped him in the chair, locking his hands to the arm rests. Then they wheeled him out, ignoring his shouted protests.

Farring was waiting in the corridor outside.

"Take him to my car and secure him in the back. I'll be out shortly."

"What ... where are you taking me?" Greg hated the tremor in his voice. His heart was pounding with fear.

Farring smiled smoothly at him.

"Doctor Cuddy has granted her permission for you to stay out of the hospital overnight. With me. We have a lot to talk about. Don't you agree, Greg?"


	10. Chapter 10

Farring finished up in a few things in his office, and then made his way out to his car, humming to himself in pleased anticipation. Greg was lying on the back floor of the car, his tall form uncomfortably hunched over. He was still bare-chested and with his hands fastened in front of him. As per Farring's instructions to the guards he was also gagged. He looked up as Farring opened the door to check on him, fury mixed with fear in his eyes. Farring smiled at him and then shut the door. The guard who'd put Greg in the car was lounging in the front seat. Standing orders were that no slave should be left alone while gagged.

Farring tipped the guard handsomely. He often asked the guards for special favours and they were usually happy to oblige for a little extra in their pocket.

The guard departed and Farring slid Greg's crutches into the trunk, noticing that the wheelchair had also been folded up and placed in there. Then he slipped into the driver's seat, smiling happily to himself. He tuned the radio to a nice classical music station and drove off.

He was going to enjoy this.

* * *

Cuddy was working late in her office. Farring had taken up half an hour of her time which had been scheduled to more important matters and now she was behind. She frowned to herself. Farring was beginning to become a major annoyance. There had always been rumours about him, and his preference for disabled slaves in his department. She'd raised an eyebrow when he'd hired Doctor Morton but her record was impeccable if undistinguished and there had been no reports of trouble from that quarter so she supposed they had come to an amicable working arrangement.

His obsession with Greg since the amputation was becoming tiresome though. She'd conceded to his request to have the slave working temporarily in his department both to punish Greg for his indiscretion in the clinic, and to encourage Doctor Wilson to tag him. Wilson was nearly as obsessed by Greg as Farring was, but seemed less likely to cause him harm and lessen his working ability.

She didn't really understand all the fuss over Greg herself. He was ordinary looking, middle-aged, disabled and generally a miserable son of a bitch to be around. He was highly intelligent sure, but not very smart. He’d let himself get in a situation where he'd been enslaved for debt. The self-destructive streak he'd shown in college had led him to this point in his life. She had little time for him except for the prestige he could bring her hospital. He was a slave and it was much easier to see him as that, and that only.

Controlling Greg had proved a headache from the start, the degree of autonomy and authority she'd had to give him to ensure the success of the diagnostic department had led to him stepping over his boundaries as a slave time and time again. The latest fuss with the drug taking and then the outburst in the clinic was causing some of the hospital Board members to doubt the wisdom of keeping him here, now that the diagnostic programme was well established.

Now she'd had to lend him out to Farring for the night to ensure the man’s support on a more important staffing matter. She'd seen the lust in Farring's eyes and warned him sternly that the slave was to come back in one piece, and in good working condition. He'd agreed readily, stating that he would never destroy any piece of hospital equipment. She suspected his ultimate agenda was to tag Greg as his, though what his wife would have to say about that she didn't know. She had no intention of allowing it to happen, ever. She had a strong feeling that Greg's useful working life would be dramatically shortened if he was tagged by Farring. 

There was a polite knock on her door and then Doctor Wilson entered, looking flustered. She smiled to herself. She could always rely on the hospital rumour mill to spread the right information to the right people.

"Doctor Wilson, what can I help you with?"

"Er ..." he rubbed the back of his neck in a gesture that she assumed was meant to be endearing. It just made her wonder if the man had ever had his neck looked at professionally.

"About House, er ... Greg .. I heard that Doctor Farring has taken him off hospital grounds?"

"Please sit down Doctor Wilson, you seem a little agitated." She couldn't help having some fun with him, he was very transparent. Cute, but obvious.

"Yes Doctor Farring asked to borrow Greg for the night. I saw no reason to refuse."

"No reason to refuse! You know what he's like. Did you see what he did to Greg yesterday?"

"No, I didn't. There is a note in Greg's file that he was disciplined twice yesterday for disobeying Doctor Farring’s orders. That is quite within hospital policy, as long as no serious damage is done to the slave requiring a stay in the ward. Greg wasn't admitted to the ward so I assume any damage was minor."

"He chained him to a chair and wouldn't let him wear a shirt." Wilson trailed off. She assumed he realised how he was sounding, being outraged over a slave not wearing a shirt.

"Again, not against hospital policy, as long as the slave was adequately fed and watered, and given bathroom breaks. His three fellows were all working with him. I assume one of them would have protested if they thought he wasn't being taken care of properly. Now what is your real concern, Doctor Wilson?"

Wilson shifted in his seat, eyes wandering around the room, then finally focusing back on her.

"Are you going to let Farring tag him?"

She smiled. Yes he was very predictable.

"I have given _you_ permission to tag him, and have encouraged you to do so. If other members of the hospital staff express an interest I can't hold him open for you forever. Greg needs someone to tag him to settle him down and bring him back under some control. If you aren't interested I will find someone who is, and Farring most certainly is."

"I _do_ want to tag him."

"Then what are you waiting for?"

Wilson looked away, clearly embarrassed. Cuddy waited him out and finally he sighed.

"I wanted him to ask me to do it. I want it to be his choice as well."

Cuddy laughed. The idea was absurd.

"He's a slave, Doctor Wilson. You don't have to ask his permission."

"I don't want his _permission_ , I just want him to come to me and ask to be tagged. It will be better like that. I told him I won't tag him unless he comes to me and asks for it."

Cuddy sat back in her chair and considered. Wilson wanted Greg but he wanted him to willingly submit to him. She suspected that Hell might just freeze over before Greg reached that point. Maybe Farring could persuade him that it was in his best interest to give Wilson what he wanted. Whatever Wilson had in mind for Greg, it was bound to be better than what Farring had planned.

Letting Farring take Greg off grounds for the night might just work out for the best after all.

* * *

They drove for what seemed like a long time. Greg had expected Farring to drive to the nearest hotel but he seemed to have somewhere further away in mind. It was uncomfortable on the floor of his car. He was too tall to lie straight so he was curled around. The gag propped his jaws apart and made them ache and his leg was burning. Wilson hadn't come up with any more pain pills during the day, nor had Morton produced any. He knew better than to ask Farring for some, even if he could talk.

Eventually the car slowed down and turned off the road. He heard the sound of a garage door opening and the car being driven inside.

Farring got out of the car without a word and then Greg heard the sound of a door being opened and shut. The lights in the garage went off and then he was alone in the car in the dark. He wondered if Farring just intended to leave him in the car like this overnight, as some sort of bizarre punishment for being right about the patient. He doubted he could be that lucky.

Briefly he thought about the possibility of getting himself into the driver's seat, backing the car out of the garage and driving off. He hadn't driven a car for over fifteen years. He hadn't had the freedom to go anywhere without someone taking him there. Even Stacy hadn't been game to let him drive. No slave was permitted to drive. Even sitting behind the wheel of a car would be classed as an escape attempt.

He shook his head. Even if he could get himself up and into the driver's seat he doubted Farring had left the key in the ignition, the garage door was undoubtedly locked and he had nowhere to go. He thought of Stephen, whose family were risking everything to shelter him. He knew that if he somehow made it to his parents' place his father would march him straight to the nearest police station.

No, escape wasn't an option. He would just have to lie here and wait for Farring to come for him.

* * *

Greg had just dozed off, exhaustion overcoming his fear, when the lights snapped back on and the door opened. The car door was opened and a man reached in and dragged him out by his feet, dumping him on the floor of the garage. 

He blinked in the sudden glare of the light and looked up. Farring was standing over him and behind him stood a male slave in his early twenties. The slave was wearing a brief pair of leather shorts and a clean white body-hugging t-shirt. Around his neck he wore a thick black collar that was adorned with studs and d-rings. He was well-muscled, tanned, and all the exposed bits of him, except for his head, were completely hairless. He was looking down at Greg with a closed off non-expression - the one that Greg saw so often in the mirror.

"Give him one of the crutches, Carlos. There is no need for you to haul him around. Greg won't cause any trouble, will you, Greg?"

Greg stared at Farring. He couldn't talk because of the gag but he was pretty sure his body language was conveying 'fuck off' fairly accurately.

Apparently Farring thought so too. "It will be one stroke of the cane for every look like that, Greg and one for every time you're slow to obey an order. If the number of strokes gets beyond twelve then I'll be turning you over to Doctor Cuddy for a whipping as well when I take you back to the hospital. I suggest you co-operate. The night will go much easier for you if you do. You might even enjoy yourself." Greg really doubted that. 

Carlos had fetched one of the crutches from the trunk of the car and he held out to him. He took it and levered himself upright with difficulty. As Carlos came closer he could see the tag hanging from his collar. Shaped like a tag you would put on a dog it was engraved with a name - 'Lois Farring'. He was tagged to Farring's wife.

Farring had a leash in his hand and he reached up and clipped it onto Greg's collar, then gave it a firm tug.

"Come along, Greg. There's a good boy."

Greg made his way awkwardly into the house, he'd begun to manage quite well with two elbow crutches but using just one slowed his progress considerably.

As he hobbled inside he was aware of his stump jutting out of his cut-off jeans. It had only been a few weeks since the amputation and he still had a shock every time he looked down at himself and saw what wasn't there. His leg had been a source of constant pain for him since the infarction but he hated that it was gone. Hated this thing that was left, this useless appendage that would never be any good for anything but bumping against things and being the object of lust from people such as Farring. Although the agonising pain he had experienced every day in his thigh was gone there was still a burning, tingling sensation now in the stump. So called 'phantom pain' that was every bit as real as the pain he'd had before.

Just getting around now was an effort that exhausted him, his hands were always occupied with two crutches, leaving none free to carry a file while he walked, or turn a door knob. Everything took effort and planning. The last couple of days had been completely draining. He was running on very little sleep, little food, almost no pain pills and two vicious punishment sessions. He had just about no reserves left to fight whatever was about to happen.

He followed Farring reluctantly down a small hallway and then down some steps to a lower level. Farring pushed open a door and tugged him over the threshold into a large room.

The room was dimly lit and it took his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the lower level of lighting. He was led to a point in the centre of the room and then his crutch was taken away and he was pushed to the floor. Farring took the end of the leash and clipped it a ringbolt set in the floor. He was effectively tethered by the neck to the floor. Carlos pulled on his shoulders until he was in an awkward kneeling position, weight over to his left side and hands on the floor for balance. Greg couldn't help but think that rather than the elegant kneeling position he had been painfully taught to maintain when he became a slave - hands behind the back, back straight and eyes down - he must look rather like a pet dog crouching there on the end of a leash.

When his eyes had adjusted to the light he looked up and saw that he was tethered in front of a couple of comfortable couches. A small coffee table sat between the couches. On the table rested a tray with some crystal wine goblets and some bowls of finger food. Lounging on one of the couches was a woman. Greg presumed it was Lois, Farring's wife. 

Farring put one hand on Greg's shoulder and ran his other through Greg's short hair.

"This is Greg, dear."

Greg stiffened at the touch of Farring's hand and tried to pull away but the man held him in place. His fingers roamed over Greg’s chest, coming round to tease at his nipples. Greg squirmed but Farring swiftly slapped him on his still raw back.

"Stay still, Greg or I'll add another cane stroke to the one you've already earned. As you can see I have the equipment here to deal with your punishment quite well."

Greg looked around at the room again. This time he took in the equipment on the walls. Everywhere he looked there was some form of disciplinary equipment. Whips, crops, paddles, and canes abounded. There was even small whipping post, with shackles hanging down from it. There were coils of rope on hooks on one wall, as well as some gags and blindfolds.

There was a bed on one side of the room, a king size one with restraints placed at each of the four posts. Greg wondered if that was where Lois fucked Carlos. 

Farring again let his hands wander over Greg's skin. The probing fingers lingered on his bare back which was bruised and welted from the flogging it had received yesterday. He arched away as Farring dug his fingers in but he was held firmly in place.

"Greg recently lost a leg. Didn't you, Greg? He likes to hide his stump away from me but I think we can do without the wrapping for tonight."

Farring came around and took off the stocking and then the wrapping around Greg's stump, revealing the still healing flesh. Greg turned his head away. He didn't like to look at it.

Farring had no such restraint. He ran his hands over it longingly.

"Is this a private party _dear_? Would you like me to leave you alone with the slave?"

Lois was apparently getting bored as she lounged on her couch. Greg looked up to see her staring at him. Her eyes raked over his body.

"I'm sorry dear,” Farring said, still caressing Greg’s stump. “I only have him for a limited time and I want to enjoy him. But I need to talk to you about something. I want to ask Doctor Cuddy if I can tag him."

Greg jerked under Farring's hand. He didn't want Farring to tag him. He didn't want _anyone_ to tag him. Never again. Not after what he'd had with Stacy. Farring tightened his grip slightly, holding him in place.

"Let me see him then,” Lois drawled, her tone one of disinterest. “I'm not impressed so far. I've always said you have poor taste in slaves."

"Strip off, Greg," Farring ordered him.

He stayed where he was, crouched over. He knew that it would be futile to keep resisting but it just wasn't in him to make it easy for Farring. He didn't give a damn about strokes with the cane, or being reported to Cuddy.

Farring sighed.

"That's another stroke, Greg. Carlos, please come and help this slave out of his jeans."

Carlos got up from where he'd been kneeling by Lois's side. With Farring holding him Greg couldn't resist for long. Carlos had his jeans unzipped and off in short order and at a nod from Farring he stripped him of his slave issue undershorts as well.

Farring smiled broadly.

"Come and have a closer look dear."

* * *

Chase, Cameron and Foreman were out on the town. It was Foreman's birthday and the other two had persuaded him to have a drink with them. The three weren't especially close but neither were any of them friendly with the other staff of the hospital. Generally they were looked down on, or pitied, for having to take orders from a slave. So they did the occasional night out together.

Cameron tried to enjoy herself but she couldn't help thinking about Doctor House. She'd last seen him this morning after the case was solved and the patient recovering. She and the other fellows had gone to the conference room to collect their things. House was still sitting there, chained to a chair, stripped to the waist and with the marks from the previous day’s flogging bright on his back.

As they had been leaving the hospital this afternoon they'd seen him being bundled into a car by security. He had been bound and gagged. None of them had any doubts about whose car it was.

She tried to drink and laugh and forget what they had seen but she couldn't. When the other two asked her what she was thinking about she told them. They didn't say much but the night broke up early and they all went home alone.

* * *

Lois smiled appreciatively and got up for a closer view.

"Well, he is a bit old, and he is crippled of course, but there is some potential there." She reached out a hand and grabbed Greg's cock. Her touch was rough and he tried to squirm away, only to be held in place by Carlos. She began to stroke him, and against his will his cock began to stiffen. He tried to struggle again, hoping for a blow, anything to distract him from what was happening to him.

"He's responsive enough anyway, but he seems a bit wild." She let go of his cock and reached up to pull at a nipple. "A shame these aren't pierced, then we could pretty him up a bit."

"I will ask Doctor Cuddy if I can have him pierced, once he's tagged. A chain through his nipples and through his cock might help to quieten him down. I'm sure she won't mind. She doesn’t seem concerned about his appearance.”

"No, I can see that, looking at his back." She was standing behind him now, her hands travelling over his back, examining the raw lash marks there. "Did you do these, Nathan?"

"Yes. Greg is a very disobedient slave and he needs a firm hand. Doctor Cuddy lets him get away with too much."

"So many scars. Such a naughty little slave. I don't know if I want to have such a bad slave here, Nathan. We'll have to keep him gagged and shackled all the time. It won't be like it is with Carlos." She reached out to Carlos who was still holding Greg and ran her hand through his hair.

"We'll train him dear, he can learn. Once I have him in my department at work, and tagged for home we can work with him. I can discipline him whenever I want then."

Greg tensed in fear. He didn't think Cuddy would let Farring tag him, but she'd sent him home with him tonight, and put him to work in Farring's department. He looked around the room again. It was obvious what went on here. He doubted that Morton had ever been brought to Farring's home, or that Lois Farring even knew of her existence, but apparently she had no objection to her husband making use of a slave. And why would she? It wasn't like slaves were human beings after all.

He bit down on the gag, frustrated at not being able to talk, even though what he wanted to say would earn him the rest of those cane strokes.

"Well, you've let me have Carlos so I guess it would be okay if you tag him. I know how much you like them with bits missing. I don't want him here every night though. Now put him away for now and then come and get some dinner."

She left, with one parting squeeze of Greg's cock. He mouthed obscenities at her through the gag but they merely came out as muffled grunts.

"Carlos," Farring said, gesturing to Greg. Carlos bent down and unclipped the leash and then bodily hauled Greg up and over to the bed. Farring held the leash all the way and Greg found that his passive resistance was useless.

He was dumped on the bed, face down and then his arms raised above his head and restrained to the top corners of the bed, tightly, so that he was stretched out. His left leg was pulled out to one side and shackled to the corner of the bed.

Farring went over to the wall and picked up a cane that had been displayed there. He came back to the bed and stood over Greg, running his hand up and down the stump. Greg's skin crawled at the constant touch on the sensitive skin.

Farring lightly tapped the cane against the flesh just above where the leg ended.

"It's a shame this is still healing, Greg. If I gave you the cane strokes here..." he tapped again, a little harder and Greg groaned behind the gag and tried to jerk the stump away. "I think that would be very effective, don't you?"

Before Greg could draw breath Farring brought down the cane with force on what remained of his right thigh, above the healing flesh but across the most sensitive part of the leg. Pain sliced into him, and he let out a scream which was effectively muffled by the gag. He jerked at his bonds but he was held tight and all he achieved was hurting himself.

"Just the one there for now I think. We don't want you running to Doctor Cuddy and complaining, do we?"

Farring ran the tip of the cane up and down the stump again and then stepped back.

"Your back is a mess, Greg. I think we had better give you the rest of these on your ass."

Greg welcomed the pain of the blows to his ass, each stroke burned fire across it but it distracted him from the pain in his leg, and the thoughts in his head of being tagged by Farring. He turned his head to the right and saw Carlos. He was kneeling by the side of the bed, hands behind his back, head down.

"Lois and I will be back later, Greg. We have a long evening ahead of us. Come, Carlos."

He clicked his fingers and the slave rose gracefully and allowed himself to be leashed and led out of the room.

Greg closed his eyes in pain and despair and imagined this future.

* * *

Wilson was alone in his hotel room that evening. After his embarrassing confession to Doctor Cuddy about how he was waiting for a slave to _ask_ to be tagged he had come straight back here. He thought about Greg, no doubt already in some dingy hotel room alone with Farring. 

Anger and jealousy filled him as he thought about what Farring could be doing. He would be using Greg for his own enjoyment, fawning over his stump and watching him walk. Pushing him down and fucking him. He'd probably punish him physically again.

It wasn't right. Greg was his. He didn't want another man using him. He fingered the tag he kept in his pocket. He imagined himself clipping the tag onto Greg's collar and claiming him . Every time he saw the tag he would know who Greg belonged and Greg would know who owned him.

He'd have exclusive access to the slave. No-one else would be able to use Greg without Wilson’s permission and he'd never give it.

He held the tag in his hand and stared at the engraving he'd had put on it.

"Property of James Wilson."

He jerked off that night while staring at the tag. He had to make this happen.

* * *

Greg was restrained on his back, arms and leg still spread wide and his ass raised by some pillows shoved underneath him. Farring pumped into him, thrusting and groaning, one hand resting on Greg's stump as he rubbed it in time with his strokes. At the last moment he pulled out and to Greg's dismay he rubbed his cock against the stump, giving it that last bit of needed stimulation. When Farring came it was all over the stump.

The stimulation of Farring's cock against his prostate had caused Greg to harden, as it always did. Lois came over and ignored her husband's panting form. She ran her hand over Greg's cock. Then with a smile she called Carlos forward and ordered him to finish Greg off with a blow job. The slave wrapped his mouth around Greg's cock and although he resisted he finally came in Carlos's mouth. When he looked up he saw both Lois and Farring watched him with lust in their eyes. He thought he heard Carlos whisper 'I'm sorry' to him as he moved away but he couldn't be sure.

* * *

Doctor Morton spent a lonely night in a quiet house. She knew that Farring had taken House home from the hospital so that he could spend the night with him. She thought about the hotel room Farring took her to, and the display she had to put on for him - showing her 'residual limb' to him and letting him paw all over it.

She thought of Greg who had risked everything to go and diagnose his patient. Greg was three times the doctor Farring was, and yet to others he was nothing but an object to be used because he was a slave.

She thought about resigning and going somewhere where she wouldn't have to have any 'special nights' with her boss.

She thought about resigning but that was all it could be – a thought. She couldn't leave this job. She was always only a week ahead of the debt collectors and a collar around her neck.

* * *

When they were finished with him for the night he was unshackled from the bed and thrust down on the floor on his hands and left knee. Farring leashed him and led him like a dog to a cage in the corner. His gag was finally removed and he was left with a bottle of water and a small bowl of slave pellets to eat. He was still naked and there were no coverings in the cage and nothing on the floor.

"You were good tonight, Greg, I enjoyed it. I look forward to many nights like this if Doctor Cuddy approves of my tagging you. Come, Carlos. Greg will be fine here for the night."

They both left and Greg curled himself up in his cage, ignoring the food and drink. His body was aching; from the cane strokes, from the tight bonds, from where Farring had thrust into him with no regard for his comfort. In his years as a slave he had managed the art of disassociating himself from his body and pretending that what was happening to it had nothing to do with him. Tonight he couldn't, tonight he felt every inch a slave who'd been used as one might use a sex toy.

He had lived for years without anyone offering him comfort or a friendly touch. Tonight he just wanted someone to hold him and to tell him it would be all right. He remembered the nights he had spent outside when he was a child and John House had banished him from their home. He'd curled in on himself then and cried for his mother to come and rescue him. She never did.

He knew nobody would come now. Nobody could come.

He spent the long night curled up in pain on the floor of a wire cage. His collar had never felt as heavy as it did just then.

* * *

Doctor Cuddy had a quiet evening at home alone. She cooked herself a nice dinner and listened to music on her expensive stereo system. After dinner she relaxed with a glass of wine and a book. Curled up comfortably on her luxurious bed she didn't think about Greg at all.

* * *

Farring let him sit on the back seat rather than the floor on the way back to the hospital. His hands were cuffed in front of him, his leash clipped to a ring behind him. He’d been given an old pair of Farring’s scrubs to wear and they were ill-fitting and stained. When they arrived at the hospital Farring removed the cuffs and unclipped the leash. He stood waiting while Greg struggled out of the car and balanced himself on his crutches. Then he took the leash in his hand and set off towards the door, Greg following him at the end of the leash.

As they neared the door Greg saw his former patient, Stephen, and two other people who he assumed were the parents, making their slow way out the door. Stephen still looked very ill but he was moving under his own power with support from his dad. Greg guessed that he'd probably signed himself out against his doctor's advice. It would not be wise for an escaped slave to stay in one place longer than absolutely necessary.

As they passed Stephen looked across and saw him being walked into the hospital on a leash. Their eyes met for a second and then they looked away. There was nothing they could say.

* * *

Doctor Cuddy was standing at the clinic desk when she saw Greg and Farring enter the hospital. She took in their appearance. Farring seemed his normal smooth self. He was impeccably dressed and bore his usual oily smile. Greg was dressed in a pair of scrubs that didn’t fit him and looked like he hadn't slept, or been groomed, in a week. Trailing along at the end of a leash he looked like something Farring might have found in the parking lot.

"Doctor Farring!"

"Yes, Doctor Cuddy?"

"I need a word with Greg in my office."

"Very well." He handed her the leash which she took loosely in her hand. "Later I would like to request a meeting with you to discuss Greg's future here."

"Certainly. This afternoon would be a good time, my assistant will ring you and confirm."

"Thank you, Doctor Cuddy. Greg, I will see you when Doctor Cuddy has finished with you."

Cuddy watched him walk off and then turned to Greg, noticing how his head was hanging low, and his shoulders were slumped. She unclipped the leash from his collar and coiled it in one hand. She didn't need to parade a slave on a leash to show that she owned him.

"In my office, Greg."

Greg came to stand in front of the desk. Given his condition she decided not to insist on his kneeling.

"First, do you need any attention in the slave recovery ward?"

She knew that he would say no. No slave would go there unless they had no choice. They were always totally immobilised for their stay there. Each slave was stripped naked and catheterised. It prevented any malingering amongst the slaves.

He shook his head.

"Good. Now I want you to know that there are three proposals on my desk regarding you. The Board wants me to investigate selling you. They are concerned that you are becoming more of a liability than an asset to the hospital."

"One legged slave. That will be an easy sale," Greg muttered.

"Actually it would be. You know as well as I do that there's a market for amputee slaves. Of course you most likely wouldn't be working as a doctor for your next purchaser. When we first bought you the next highest bidder was a slave porn company. Maybe they would still be interested for their ‘special’ productions."

Greg shut his mouth and looked away. She could see him swallowing hard. When she'd bought him for the hospital he'd been pathetically grateful that he would still be working in medicine. It was time that he remembered just how lucky he'd been and that no other hospital had shown an interest in him.

"The second proposal is that the Diagnostics Department be placed under the control of another department - Internal Medicine is the one proposed - and that your autonomy over the department be removed. Most of the Board think it's bad for morale in the hospital to have a slave be nominally in charge of a department."

"You promised ... when I came here, you said that I would run Diagnostics ..."

"When _I bought you_ , I set up Diagnostics a certain way, I believed that it would function better if you had at least some authority over it. It is, of course, within my prerogative to change that at any time if I believe it will benefit the hospital. I certainly do not have to consult with the property of the Department to do that."

"Doctor Farring is in charge of Internal Medicine. I would be working for him," Greg said bleakly.

"Yes, which would fit in nicely with the third proposal, which is a request from Doctor Farring to be permitted to tag you, so that he would have exclusive sexual rights to you, and would be permitted to take you off the hospital grounds regularly, your workload permitting."

Greg was trembling now, she could see it. She knew he'd been under strain ever since she'd sent him to work for Farring. He’d been physically punished at least twice and had received little rest. To top it off he’d experienced what had probably been a very unpleasant night with Farring. She'd seen this trembling reaction before, when he'd been faced with a whipping. He always seemed to regret his actions when it was too late to stop the consequences.

"I...I don't want him to tag me..." Greg said in a very small voice, staring at the floor. "Please...don't let him..." 

To her surprise he sank to the floor, kneeling on one leg, hands resting in front of him, head bowed.

"Please don't..."

"Greg, head up."

He lifted his head and looked at her. His expression was wide open for once. He looked shattered, broken.

She looked down at him, the distraught slave kneeling on her office carpet. She felt no pleasure, just satisfaction that her plan was working.

"You will go and get yourself cleaned up, have a shower and then go and visit the groomer. Then draw some clean clothes from the laundry." He looked like he hadn't been shaved or showered in days and his hair was growing wildly. "When you look more presentable I suggest you go and see Doctor Wilson. If you are tagged by Doctor Wilson I will have to reconsider these proposals in the light of new developments. Do you understand me, Greg?"

He swallowed and then nodded.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Very well, I will be arranging a meeting with Doctor Farring this afternoon. If Doctor Wilson has anything to tell me that will affect the outcome of that meeting he should contact me before then."

"Yes, Ma'am." 

"You may go."

She didn't offer him a hand and he struggled up using one crutch for leverage. With his head down he made his way slowly out of her office.

As he left she smiled. She didn't think she would need to meet with Farring that afternoon.

* * *

Greg was standing under the spray in the slave showers when he heard them approaching. Three security guards, grins on their faces and a small specimen bottle in hand. Random drug testing. His eyes closed. He'd been enjoying a few minutes of peace in the shower, trying to let the water wash away the events of the last couple of days. He didn't want to do this now, not ever really, but not now, not after last night.

When they turned off the spray they thrust the bottle in his hands and watched as he provided a specimen, there and then, naked and shivering in the cool air.

Once business was concluded they looked at their watches and announced that they were now off duty. He was pushed to the hard tile floor and the first man opened his trousers.

"Open wide, Greg."

When they had all been satisfied they left him there, huddled on the bathroom floor. His crutches on the other side of the room.

It took a long time to crawl over to the crutches and then over to the basins.

What little he'd had to eat yesterday came out of him as he stood hunched over the sink.

After he was finished he straightened up, washed off his face and rinsed his mouth out. Then he went back under the shower spray, wishing that the water would be hot enough to burn away his pain.

* * *

Wilson had been keeping an eye out for Greg all morning. He wasn't sure if the slave was going back to Farring's department or returning to diagnostics. The three fellows weren't in yet, as usual after a case they were having the morning off to make up for the extra hours they had worked. There would be no time off for Greg though.

He saw him on the balcony. It was one of the few freedoms Greg was allowed in the hospital. A small piece of the outside world where he could stand and watch the people below and imagine what it would be like to be free. He often saw Greg just standing there, staring.

Wilson got up and went out to the balcony. Greg turned to face him. The slave looked a lot better today. He was cleaned up. His hair was neatly trimmed, his face free of scruff, and he was wearing a clean, if well worn, pair of jeans and t-shirt. All his wounds were concealed as if they had never happened.

Greg grinned at him, showing all his teeth but there was no humour in his eyes.

"Greg, are you okay? Did Farring..."

He didn't know what to ask. Did Farring abuse you? Wilson knew he had, except it wasn't considered abuse because Greg was a slave. Property damage at the most.

"You win."

He blinked, and waved his hand around.

"Sorry Greg, I'm not sure what you mean."

"I want you to tag me."

Wilson couldn't help the smile that spread over his face.

"You want me to tag you? What brought this on?"

"Does it matter?" Greg asked in a weary voice, the voice of a man nearing his tolerance level. "Just do it, do it now. I want you to do it now."

Wilson fingered the shiny tag where it sat in his pocket. He'd been keeping it there for weeks, ready for this moment. This wasn't quite right though. He didn't want this to be rushed. He wanted to remember this moment for a long time.

"You need to kneel. _I_ need you to kneel."

Greg just looked at him with that closed off expression and then nodded. Handing off one crutch to Wilson, he used the other to help him get down then laid it down next to him. Hands on the ground for balance he ducked his head.

Wilson bent down and lifted his chin. The tag was in his hands, his name in bright letters on the silver metal. His hands were shaking slightly as he reached out and clipped it to the front d-ring on Greg's collar.

"You're in my care now, Greg. My care and my control. You're my responsibility. No-one besides me can use you. You're safe now."

The tag hung down, resting on Greg's collarbone. Wilson could see his own name there. He put his arms around Greg and pulled him to his feet, handing him back his crutches. He could feel Greg trembling slightly.

"This will be good for you, Greg. I'm going to care for you, and protect you. You just have to listen to what I say now and let me help you. Now come inside and I'll get you some pain medicine and find you something to eat and drink, you look like you're about to collapse."

"Yes, Master."

"You don't have to call me ..., "Wilson started and then broke off. There was a tiny smile on Greg's face and a glint in his eyes. Greg was mocking him. He clamped down on his anger. First he had to win Greg's trust, and then he could work on discipline issues. There would be plenty of time.

He turned to go inside. At the door he paused. Greg was staring over the balcony, an intent expression on his face. As he watched, the slave shook himself and turned away from the outside world to follow Wilson inside.

The End


End file.
